Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE), prime bourse of the country, on Wednesday closed trading in flat after passing a volatile session as risk-averse investors preferred to book some gain following the recent price upsurge.

The market started with buoyancy, but the morning cheerfulness inverted as the shaky investors opted to liquidate their investment, especially in general insurance, mutual fund, financial institutions and life insurance sectors.

The bargain hunters, however, tried to upturn the index but the active presence of the wobbly investors pushed down the DSEX to settle in flat.

The broad index, DSEX settled at 4839.05 points on Wednesday with a slight loss of 0.80 points or 0.01 percent.

Besides two selective indices, Blue Chip index, DSE30 and Shariah index, DSES went up by 7.13 points and 4.70 points to settle at 1656.32 points and 1108.45 points respectively.

On the DSE trading floor, a total number of 160,677 trades were executed in today’s trading session with a trading volume of 261.60 million securities.

DSE’s turnover, a crucial indicator of the market, increased by 10 percent over last session as the investors took some position in June ending stocks ahead of year-end dividend declarations. It stood at Taka 6.50 billion from Taka 5.89 billion in the previous session.

Losers took lead over gainers as out of 355 issues traded, 134 securities gained price while 169 declined and 52 remained unchanged.

The market-cap of the DSE increased to Taka 3,946 billion from Taka 3,926 billion of the previous session.

The enthusiastic investors took positions on engineering, fuel and power, food and telecom sectors. The general insurance sector dominated the turnover board with 26 percent of total turnover while top losers’ list was comprised of general insurance stocks, according to a market analyst, International Leasing Securities Limited (ILSL).

It said major sectors witnessed better performance today. Among the major sectors based on market capitalization – engineering (4.9pc), food (1.7pc), and fuel and power (0.9pc) sectors achieved price appreciation while general insurance (-6.6pc), mutual fund (-5.8pc) and financial institution (-2.9pc) sectors witnessed price correction.

The investors’ activity was mostly centered on general insurance (26.1pc), engineering (10.9pc) and textile (9.4pc) sectors while Asia Pacific Insurance (3.7pc), Brac Bank (3.4pc) and BSCCL (3.3pc) led the scrip wise turnover board, said ILSL.

Asia Pacific General Insurance topped the turnover chart followed by BSCCL, Beximco Limited, Beximco Pharma, Brac Bank, Walton Hi-Tech, Continental Insurance, Paramount Textile, BD Finance and Express Insurance.

The top 10 gainers were GPH Ishpat, BSCCL, National Tubes, Khan Brothers PD, GQ Ball Pen, Asia Pacific General Insurance, Fu-Wang Ceramic Walton Hi-Tech, National Polymer and National Feed while the top 10 losers Peoples Insurance, Karnphuli Insurance, BD Finance, Phoenix Insurance, Federal Insurance, Rupali Insurance, Eastland Insurance, Janata Insurance, Nitol Insurance and Sandhani Life Insurance.

On the other hand, port city bourse, Chittagong Stock Exchange (CSE) closed trading in red.

Selective categories index, CSCX and all shares price index, CASPI declined by 13.98 points and 23.71 points to stand at 8296.01 points and 13814.07 points respectively.

At CSE, a total of 11,325,974 share and mutual funds of 243 companies were traded, of which 79 issues advanced while 117 declined and 47 issues remained unchanged.