Agency

Dhaka Stocks finished higher for a second day with the general index, setting a new high of more than 3100 points amid a trend of mixed buying and selling by investors.

Turnover and the trading volume on the country's prime bourse also crept up from the previous day. Investors mostly traded in major issues of banks, pharmaceuticals and chemicals, leather and mutual funds.

"Dividend declarations spurred some other issues," said an official of brokerage house Latif Securities. Market watchers termed the day's trading satisfactory and said that everything was on track.

They dismissed any possibility of imminent market overheating. "Everything including the market trend and indices seems to be okay," DSE chief executive Salahuddin Ahmed Khan told bdnews24.com.

Khan dismissed the speculation of market overheating and said: "The merchant banks are not issuing abundant loans. The DGEN or general index maintained an upward trend throughout the day to finish 29.09 points, or 0.94 percent higher at 3101.94. The DSI or all-share price index ended on 2612.82, advancing 19.56 points, or 0.75 percent from the previous day.

The bourse's blue chip, DSE-20 rose 17.74 points, or 0.75 percent, to close at 2372.99. Turnover crept up to Tk 2.81 billion from Wednesday's Tk 2.72 billion, with 16,108,747 shares changing hands.

Decliners beat advancers 154 to 85 and four issues remained unchanged. AB Bank topped the turnover board and continued its gains from last week to close 8.60 percent higher at Tk 4337.

IFIC Bank ended on TK 3203.25, up 2.12 percent while footwear major Apex Adelchi slumped 22.49 percent to close at Tk 3900 after price adjustment.

Square Pharmaceuticals continued to gain, rising 2.12 percent to Tk 4649. Z category issue, UCBL, eroded Wednesday's gains to end 0.70 percent down on Tk 4877.75.

Among the other scrips on the turnover board, AIMS 1st Mutual Fund, Trust Bank, and ACI rose on buying pressure. BRAC Bank and Keya Cosmetics declined after investors locked in profits.

Indices on the Chittagong Stock Exchange also ended higher, paced by huge gains in leather and footwear, mutual funds and chemical sectors.

The CSCX or selective categories index rose 49.83 or 0.89 percent to 5644.20 while the CASPI or all-share price index ended on 8719.14, up 63.37 points or 0.73 percent.

The CSE-30 blue-chip index surged 121.63 points or 1.62 percent to 7623.78. Turnover on the port city bourse declined to Tk 356.20 million from 2,395,560 traded shares, from Tk 435.33 million the previous day.