Banking shares failed to charm investors yesterday with a price fall of 3.05 percent, although some announced higher dividends for 2013.
The decline in prices of banking shares also led yesterday's market to fall by 52.56 points or 1.1 percent, to close the day at 4,697.3 points.
Five banks declared dividends for 2013 as of yesterday; three recommended higher dividends than the previous year, two announced similar dividend ratios and one announced lower dividends, according to Dhaka Stock Exchange data.
United Commercial Bank's profits surged 93.2 percent from the previous year to Tk 306 crore in 2013.
Eastern Bank's profits went up 6 percent to Tk 254 crore in 2013 while BRAC Bank saw a profit hike of 106.7 percent to Tk 134 crore in 2013, compared to the previous year.
The banking sector fell yesterday may be due to the investors' unhappiness over dividend declaration, said Md Moniruzzaman, managing director of IDLC Investments.
The earnings of banks in the nine months of last year were poor due to political crisis, he said.
Growth in the fourth quarter's earnings can mainly be attributed to lower provisioning that the bank charged by utilising the central bank's relaxation in loan rescheduling and provisioning guidelines, he said.
Most banks passed a difficult time last quarter due to strikes and blockades that hit new investments hard, he added.
Investors worry that the dividend declaration of banks may not sustain in future, he said.
Price fall of shares of the financial sectors, especially banks, extended the losing streak for the third day, said IDLC Investments in its regular market analysis.
Turnover, the most important indicator of the market, declined 11.16 percent to Tk 574 crore from the previous day.
Losers took a strong lead over the gainers, as 205 issues declined, 63 advanced and 23 remained unchanged on the DSE floor.
A total of 1.21 lakh trades were executed with 8.89 crore shares and mutual fund units changing hands at the DSE.  
Cement lost 1.4 percent, non-bank financial institutions 1.2 percent and engineering 0.6 percent.
Grameenphone was among the most traded stocks chart with 14.80 lakh shares worth Tk 32 crore changing hands, followed by Olympic Industries, Meghna Petroleum and Padma Oil.
Marico Bangladesh was the biggest gainer of the day, posting a 17.46 percent gain, while Prime Finance and Investment was the prime loser, plunging by 10.47 percent.