The market passed a mixed week, as investors were mostly focusing on multinational companies over corporate declarations and merger news.
DSEX, the benchmark general index of Dhaka Stock Exchange, lost 28.49 points or 0.62 percent week-on-week to close at 4,592.73 last week.
DSES, the shariah index of DSE, gained 11.75 points or 1.17 percent to finish at 1,020.22.
Of the five trading sessions on the premier bourse, the market fell on three and rose on the rest.
Preeminent large-cap companies, especially multinationals like Lafarge Surma Cement, Heidelberg Cement and Grameenphone, attracted the major flow of funds, leaving small-cap classes dry and offbeat, said IDLC Investments.
With the disclosure of the merger news of Lafarge of France and Holcim of Switzerland, Lafarge Surma experienced an upswing throughout the week, the merchant bank said in its weekly market analysis.
The cement sector performed robustly alongside capturing lion's share of the turnover, IDLC Investments said.
In the later part of the week, the financial sector particularly banks came to the frontline, it said.
“Since heavyweight segments performed well for a couple of sessions, some cautious investors drove for booking profit or re-balancing portfolio, the merchant bank said.
Supported by increased participations, total and daily average turnover increased 34 percent to Tk 2,551.71 crore and Tk 510.34 crore respectively last week.
Grameenphone, Square Pharma, Lafarge Surma and Heidelberg Cement captured 10 percent, 9 percent, 8 percent, 7 percent and 6 percent respectively of the week's total turnover.
Referring the Heidelberg's cash dividend of Tk 38 per share for 2013, LankaBangla Securities said in its weekly market analysis: “Investors took this positively and Heidelberg rose by 20.1 percent last week. Lafarge's merger with Holcim also boosted its price.”
Investors were also very upbeat about Grameenphone, it said. “Probably they were expecting Grameenphone to show good financial figures this year, as last year's adverse tax effect will not be present there.”
Losers, however, took a strong lead over the gainers as 231 declined, 57 advanced and 13 issues remained unchanged out of the 301 issues that traded on the DSE.
Among the major sectors, telecom gained 11.67 percent, cement 9.21 percent and tannery 5.87 percent. Conversely, IT sector lost 6.2 percent, general insurance 5.17 percent and bank 3.87 percent.
Grameenphone dominated the week's top turnover chart with 1.06 crore shares worth Tk 258.43 crore changing hands, followed by Lafarge Surma Cement, Heidelberg Cement, Padma Oil and Olympic Industries.
Heidelberg was the week's top gainer, posting a rise of 20.94 percent, while Northern Jute Manufacturing was the worst loser, slumping by 25.06 percent.