Stocks pare gains

Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) Friday witnessed a highly volatile session due to impact of rollover week that dented the investor sentiment. The market started on a positive note and the benchmark KSE-100 index hit 50,887.61 points intra-day high, up 695.25 points. However, selling pressure in various stocks pushed the index into negative zone at 49,899.60 points intra-day low. The index closed at 49,963.77 points, down 228.59 points.
The local investors and institutions opted to offload their holdings to book profit on available margins. Foreign investors remained net buyers of shares worth $1.9 million.
Trading activity improved as the daily trading volumes on ready counter increased to 597.964 million shares as compared to 449.717 million shares traded Thursday. The market capitalisation decreased by Rs 57 billion to stand at Rs 9.946 trillion. Out of total 421 active scrips, 259 closed in negative, 149 in positive while the value of 13 stocks remained unchanged.
K-Electric was the volume leader with 165.252 million shares. It gained Rs 0.42 to close at Rs 10.67 followed by Faysal Bank that declined by Rs 1.30 to close at Rs 25.98 with 39.030 million shares. TRG Pak increased by Rs 2.02 to close at Rs 57.33 with 29.699 million shares.
Nestle Pakistan and Hinopak Motor were the top gainers with Rs 98.00 and Rs 85.72, respectively to close at Rs 9,000.00 and Rs 1,800.25. Colgate Palmolive and Wyeth Pak were top losers with Rs 90.00 and Rs 82.48, respectively to close at Rs 1,710.00 and Rs 4,489.08.
Ahsan Mehanti at Arif Habib Corporation said that institutional profit-taking was witnessed in overbought stocks across-the-board. Cautious activity remained in banking scrips ahead of SBP policy decisions to be announced Saturday (today). He said concerns over the outcome of SC hearings on PM Panamagate case played a catalytic role in bearish close in future contracts rollover week at PSX.
An analyst at Global Securities said that the PSX witnessed a volatile session as the impact of rollover week dented investors' sentiments. The market started off on a bullish note, marking its peak at 50,887 points and remained on the positive trajectory during the first half. However, it soon fell prey to the selling pressure during the second half, causing the market to enter red territory and close below the 50,000 level. APL (-5.00 percent) and NRL (-4.94 percent) closed at the lower circuits after the announcement of lower than expected results while the major surge towards the index came from HUBC (+1.91 percent) for the second consecutive day followed by HBL (+1.02 percent), KEL (4.1 percent), NBP (2.77 percent) and TRG (+3.65 percent).