Blue-chips witness sales pressure

The premier bourse returned to the green on Tuesday after five sessions of bearish spells amid choppy trading following `mixed` performance of major sectors.

The buyers` attention was attracted mostly to the issues from telecom, cement and travel sector while IT, tannery and general insurance sector witnessed selling spree, said International Leasing Securities in its market analysis.

The DSE broad index DSEX increased 4.69 points and closed at 4596.86 while DS30 was 2.41 points down with DSES 2.54 points up.

Of the major sectors, cement, textile and telecom witnessed increase by 0.91 per cent, 0.38 per cent and 1.44 per cent respectively.

"Stocks firmed up considerably in the morning owing to the positive earnings and declarations, however it got off to a directionless movement in the early afternoon fading the morning enthusiasm in the market," said LankaBangla Securities.

It said major stocks of blue-chip DSE index were under sales pressure that eroded the early gain in the bourse`s benchmark index.

Besides, the food & allied and the fuel & power sectors went down by 0.27 per cent and 0.68 per cent respectively.

"Activity from the market participants remained almost flat on the day as the shaky investors remained watchful about future market direction to take fresh position in the stocks," said International Leasing Securities.

Activities decreased in the main bourse where turnover and volume were 3.09 per cent and 11.96 per cent down respectively with trade 2.23 per cent up.

"The market witnessed a seesaw in the bourse as investors` state of mind oscillated between optimism and watchfulness," said the EBL Securities.

It also said the market participation remained poor as no indication of the upcoming economic or market outlook was apparent that kept a major part of the investors in the sideline.

Above 0.099 million trades were executed on the day`s trading session generating turnover of above 3.76 billion with trading volume of 116.75 million securities.

On the premier bourse, 121 securities gained, 151 declined and 52 remained unchanged.