Agency

Bourses ended lower Monday due to a fall in the prices of blue chips.

Investors' sell-offs with relatively lower buying led turnover and the trading volume on the country's twin bourses to decline.
 
An official of brokerage house IDLC Securities said retail investors sold off market majors which rose on Sunday in a bid to reap benefits.
 
"Buying was very low today (Monday) with some large scale investors buying in the wake of falling prices," added the official.
 
Analysts said the sell-offs were rational but the low buying was unexpected.
 
"It's quite expected that investors especially, retail ones would engage on selling after last day's hike in price," said Bashir Ahmed, an investment consultant.
 
But more buying should have occurred, said Bashir who is with brokerage house Stocks & Bonds.
 
"Panic of interventions might have led retail investors to behave like this."
 
DSE chief executive Salahuddin Ahmed disagreed with Bashir and said: "Heavy sell-offs usually happen after a day of high prices."
 
The benchmark DGEN or general index began the day in a positive mood with the index rising up 20 points only to slump immediately. It maintained a downward curve afterwards to decline 29.73 points or 0.98 percent to finish at 2990.56.
 
The DSI or all-share price index shed 21.50 points or 0.83 percent, closing at 2564.10. The blue-chip DSE-20 finished at 2556.39, slumping 41.80 points or 1.60 percent.
 
Turnover fell to Tk 2.55 billion from Sunday's Tk 3.12 billion—from 15,148,090 shares changing hands.
 
Losers outnumbered gainers 145 to 75, while nine issues held steady.
 
Turnover leader ACI finished 0.23 percent lower at Tk 382.70. Square Pharmaceuticals ended at Tk 5231.75, down by 1.33 percent.
 
Lanka Bangla Finance eroded Sunday's gains to close 1.01 percent lower at Tk 224.50. Beximco Pharma finished at Tk 94.40, falling 2.37 percent.
 
AIMS 1st Mutual Fund slumped 15.24 percent to Tk 13.57.
 
Among the other scrips on the turnover board—Beximco and Keya Cosmetics —also lost.
 
Apex Adelchi Footwear, Fareast Islami Life Insurance and BRAC Bank rose.
 
Indices on the Chittagong Stock Exchange also ended lower due to huge losses in mutual funds, ICT and energy shares.
 
The CSCX or selective categories index lost 56.77 points or 0.96 percent to end on 5840.97. The CASPI or all-share price index closed at 9044.95, declining 62.50 points or 0.68 percent.
 
The CSE-30 blue-chip fell 114.15 points or 1.39 percent to 8087.18.
 
Turnover on the port city bourse slumped to Tk 250.21 million from Tk 433.88 million the previous day—from trading of 3,010,852 shares.
 
Of the traded issues, 89 lost, 39 gained and three remained unchanged.