Bears rule stock market

KARACHI: Pakistan Stock Exchange Wednesday remained under severe pressure and closed in deep red on the third consecutive day due to continuous heavy selling by local and foreign investors.

The KSE-100 index plunged by 584.82 points or 1.30 percent to close at 44,363.70 points. Daily trading volumes on ready counter stood at 310.388 million shares as compared to 264.608 million shares traded Tuesday.

BRIndex100 declined by 61.16 points or 1.33 percent to close at 4,545.47 points with total daily turnover of 258.775 million shares.

BRIndex30 declined lost 145.37 points or 0.78 percent to close at 18,401.32 points with total daily trading volumes of 162.337 million shares.

Foreign investors also remained on the selling side and withdrew $12.256 million from local capital market. Total market capitalization declined by Rs 88 billion to Rs 7.627 trillion. Out of total 341 active scrips, 245 closed in negative and only 76 in positive while the value of 20 stocks remained unchanged.

TRG Pak was the volume leader with 26.519 million shares and increased by Rs 1.76 to close at Rs 90.11 followed by WorldCall Telecom that lost Rs 0.06 to close at Rs 2.11 with 24.680 million shares.

Bhanero Textile and Gatron Industries were the top gainers increasing by Rs 64.00 and Rs 38.13 respectively to close at Rs 1139.00 and Rs 546.60 while Rafhan Maize and Sapphire Fiber were the top losers declining by Rs 100.00 and Rs 65.05 respectively to close at Rs 9500.00 and Rs 892.95.

An analyst at Arif Habib Limited said that bears continued to dominate over the bulls for the straight three consecutive sessions in a week as investors feared from the upcoming mini budget. Moreover, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has rejected Pakistan’s request to keep a door open for borrowing from the central bank and also did not agree on any meaningful accountability of the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP).

The third day of the roll-over week remained under pressure despite attractive valuations. Across the board selling was witnessed. On the institutional front, cautious stance was recorded due to the concerns of foreign selling spree in the upcoming MSCI re-balancing day.

Sectors contributing to the performance include Banks (down 159.0 points), Fertilizers (down 123.8 points), Cements (down 117.8 points) and Pharmaceuticals (down 48.7 points).

BR Automobile Assembler Index lost 44.3 points or 0.52 percent to close at 8,470.62 points with total turnover of 2.668 million shares.

BR Cement Index plunged by 161.38 points or 2.77 percent to close at 5,668.85 points with 13.764 million shares.

BR Commercial Banks Index declined by 150.85 points or 1.48 percent to close at 10,072.08 points with 19.877 million shares.

BR Power Generation and Distribution Index decreased by 25.4 points or 0.47 percent to close at 5,380.16 points with 9.418 million shares.

BR Oil and Gas Index closed at 3,696.51 points, down 22.17 points or 0.6 percent with 15.462 million shares.

BR Tech. & Comm. Index gained 37.23 points or 0.99 percent to close at 3,788.05 points with 87.985 million shares.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2021