Stocks in the Dhaka and Chittagong Stock Exchanges continued their bull run yesterday on the back of a marginal but lower fuel price.

On Monday, the government cut fuel prices by Rs 5 per liter in line with the National Board of Revenue's cut in import duty on diesel by 11.25 percentage points.

As of yesterday, the retail price of diesel and kerosene stood at BDT 109, petrol at BDT 125 and octane at BDT 130. The price adjustment comes 23 days after the government hiked record fuel prices from 42.5 to 42.7 percent.

As a result, the Dhaka Stock Exchange's benchmark index DSEX added 24 points or 0.39 percent to close at 6,432, posting its fifth consecutive day of gains.

DS30, the blue-chip index, rose 0.17 percent to 2,279 and DSES, the Shariah-based index, gained 0.21 percent to 1,396.

Transactions, one of the key indicators of the market, rose marginally to Rs 1,769 crore. On Monday it was Rs 1,744 crore.

Among the securities, 184 advanced, 123 declined and 73 showed no change in value.

International Leasing Securities Ltd, a brokerage house, in its daily market review said,

“Stocks continued the bull run as bargain hunters maintained their buying appetite amid buoyant participation.

Excited investors expressed their interest after the news of the government reducing the price of fuel oil by Rs 5 per litre.”

Yesterday, the market opened on an upbeat note and fended off mid-session selling pressure as buoyant investors placed fresh bets on large-cap stocks.

Among sectors, services rose 3.4 percent, financial institutions rose 2.3 percent, and cement added 1.8 percent. On the other hand, Telecom suffered a price correction of 1.2 percent, Ceramics 1.1 percent and IT 0.6 percent.

Investor activity was mostly concentrated in the textiles, pharmaceuticals and engineering sectors, which accounted for 21.8 per cent, 13.2 per cent and 12 per cent of market turnover, respectively.

CASPI, the all-share price index of the Chittagong Stock Exchange (CSE), rose for the fourth straight day yesterday as it closed at 18,898 after adding 69 points or 0.37 per cent.

On the CSE, gainers outnumbered decliners as 148 securities advanced, 93 declined and 63 were unchanged.

Turnover slightly increased to BDT 42.84 crore from BDT 42.02 crore a day ago.