Dhaka Stocks Extend Losing Streak to Fourth Straight Session as Earnings Jitters Persist

Four Days, 71 Points, One Clear Cause

Dhaka's benchmark DSEX index closed lower for a fourth consecutive session on September 29, slipping 1.5 points to end the day at 5,524, extending a losing streak that has now shaved 71 points off the index since September 24. It is a smaller drop than the first two sessions of the slide, which had already pulled the index down from a brief rally high near 5,596, but the fact that the decline kept going for a fourth straight day told analysts something about the mood in the market was shifting rather than simply correcting.

Turnover told a similar story. Trading value fell 15 percent from the previous session, a sign that fewer investors were willing to commit fresh money while the index was still finding its footing. Market breadth leaned negative too, with 178 stocks declining against 142 advancing and 75 unchanged across 395 issues traded, a spread that points to broad based caution rather than a sell off concentrated in one or two large names.

Textiles Still the Market's Center of Gravity

Even in a down session, trading activity clustered heavily around a handful of sectors. Textiles alone accounted for 28.8 percent of turnover, well ahead of general insurance at 18.2 percent and pharmaceuticals at 10.6 percent, underlining how much of the Dhaka Stock Exchange's daily liquidity still flows through the same export facing names quarter after quarter. Within that overall picture, the sector leadership split in an unusual way: textiles, travel and cement actually posted gains on the day, while paper, IT and mutual funds recorded the steepest losses. That mix, strength in some of the most turnover heavy sectors alongside weakness in smaller, thinner ones, helps explain why the headline index fell only 1.5 points even as more stocks declined than advanced.

EBL Securities, in a note on the session, said "the benchmark index slipped into negative territory in the final hour as investor caution over potentially weaker earnings from June closing companies weighed on sentiment," adding that the market had actually opened positively and seen brief buying interest before late hour selling pressure took over. That pattern, a firm open followed by an afternoon retreat, has now shown up repeatedly through the four day slide, suggesting investors are using early strength to exit positions rather than to add to them.

The Earnings Anxiety Has a Name

The "weaker earnings" concern EBL Securities pointed to is not abstract. Two of the large cap names already flagged as leading the market's earlier decline, Islami Bank Bangladesh and LafargeHolcim Bangladesh, illustrate exactly why June closing companies are making investors nervous this earnings season. Islami Bank Bangladesh reported a consolidated loss of Tk1,316.48 crore for the first half of 2026, a stunning reversal from the Tk67.40 crore profit it posted in the same period a year earlier, with the standalone loss running even higher at Tk1,326.81 crore and a loss per share of Tk8.10. The bank attributed the swing to higher profit expense on deposits, falling income from a growing pile of classified investments, and reduced earnings from placements with other banks, with a bank official pointing specifically to loans extended to the S Alam Group that have stopped generating repayments even as the bank keeps paying depositors their promised returns.

LafargeHolcim Bangladesh's numbers moved in the opposite direction on a quarterly basis but still carried a warning for the half year. Second quarter net profit rose 8 percent year on year to Tk1.05 billion, with revenue up 14 percent to Tk7.40 billion and earnings per share improving to Tk0.90 from Tk0.83, results the company credited to "strategic pricing discipline, product innovation and strong customer trust." Yet for the first half as a whole, net profit actually fell 8 percent to Tk2.17 billion from Tk2.36 billion a year earlier, with operating EBIT down 11 percent, as inflationary pressure and elevated energy costs ate into margins built up earlier in the year. A single strong quarter sitting inside a weaker half year is precisely the kind of mixed signal that makes investors in June closing stocks harder to read heading into results season.

Company	H1 2026 result	H1 2025 result	Change
Islami Bank Bangladesh (consolidated)	Loss of Tk1,316.48 crore	Profit of Tk67.40 crore	Swung to loss
LafargeHolcim Bangladesh (net profit)	Tk2.17 billion	Tk2.36 billion	Down 8%
LafargeHolcim Bangladesh (Q2 net profit only)	Tk1.05 billion	Tk967 million	Up 8%

A Pattern That Looks Familiar

This is not the first retreat the Dhaka market has logged this quarter, and the shape of this one echoes the last. Just days before this four session slide began, the DSEX had climbed as high as 5,596 on the back of a Moody's outlook upgrade for Bangladesh's sovereign rating and a wave of insider share purchases at several banks, before falling back on the same earnings anxiety now driving the current slide. Analysts have generally read that earlier dip, and this one, as a market running into the limits of investor conviction after a bargain hunting rally rather than a sign of a deeper flight from equities altogether. The distinction matters because the two explanations call for very different responses: a tired rally running out of steam tends to stabilise once new information arrives, while a genuine confidence problem tends to keep feeding on itself.

What the Secondary Indices Showed

The broader weakness showed up consistently across Dhaka's other gauges. The DSE Shariah Index fell 2 points and the DS30 blue chip index, which tracks the market's thirty largest and most liquid companies, dropped 3 points, confirming that the softness was not confined to smaller or more speculative names. Over at the Chittagong Stock Exchange, the CSCX index fell 3.9 points and the broader CASPI index dropped 5 points, showing the caution extended beyond Dhaka to the country's secondary bourse as well.

What to Watch Next

With the four session slide having trimmed 71 points without yet breaking through any major technical level, the next few trading days are likely to hinge on how many more June closing companies report results that look like Islami Bank Bangladesh's loss versus how many look more like LafargeHolcim's resilient quarter. A string of weak disclosures from major banks and industrials could extend the retreat meaningfully, while a run of results closer to expectations could let the market stabilise around current levels. Investors will also be watching whether the Moody's upgraded outlook, and the government's parallel push for a first ever sovereign dollar bond by December, eventually pull fresh institutional and foreign money back into large caps the way they briefly did in the rally that preceded this slide.