KARACHI: A bloodbath session was witnessed on Pakistan Stock Exchange Wednesday due to alarming Covid-19 cases and higher international oil prices.
The market opened on a bleak note and stayed in the red zone throughout the day due to selling pressure from the mutual funds. In the last trading hour, across the board hefty selling was observed.
The benchmark KSE-100 Index plunged by 673.98 points or 1.48 percent and closed below 45,000 psychological level at 44,833.43 points. Daily trading volumes on ready counter increased to 236.934 million shares as compared to 165.136 million shares traded Tuesday.
BRIndex100 decreased by 94.75 points or 2.03 percent to close at 4,581.29 points with total daily turnover of 204.751 million shares.
BRIndex30 declined by 883.44 points or 4.75 percent to close at 17,711.57 points with total daily trading volumes of 150.084 million shares.
Foreign investors however remained net buyers of shares worth $671,518. Total market capitalization declined by Rs 100 billion to Rs 7.703 trillion. Out of total 360 active scrips, 289 closed in negative and only 56 in positive while the value of 15 stocks remained unchanged.
WorldCall Telecom was the volume leader with 27.328 million shares however lost Rs 0.18 to close at Rs 2.16 followed by TRG Pak that plunged by Rs 7.16 to close at its lower level at Rs 88.36 with 20.191 million shares.
Unilever Foods and Sapphire Textile were the top gainers increasing by Rs 100.00 and Rs 74.00 respectively to close at Rs 20999.00 and Rs 1124.00 while Bata Pak and Colgate Palmolive were the top losers declining by Rs 98.00 and Rs 78.99 respectively to close at Rs 1902.00 and Rs 2420.01.
An analyst at Arif Habib Limited said that bloodbath session was witnessed due to alarming Covid-19 cases and higher international oil prices. The market opened on a bleak note and stayed in the red zone throughout the day due to selling pressure from the mutual funds. Cement sector stayed under pressure due to uptick in international coal prices. In the last trading hour, across the board hefty selling was observed.
Sectors contributing to the performance include Cement (down 101.1 points), Technology (down 98.8 points), Commercial Banks (down 73.0 points), E&P (down 50.1 points) and Fertilizer (down 47.6 points).
BR Automobile Assembler Index declined by 121.65 points or 1.4 percent to close at 8,560.31 points with total turnover of 1.206 million shares.
BR Cement Index plunged by 151.32 points or 2.67 percent to close at 5,525.62 points with 8.718 million shares.
BR Commercial Banks Index lost 78.06 points or 0.77 percent to close at 10,056.68 points with 12.418 million shares.
BR Power Generation and Distribution Index fell by 45.45 points or 0.76 percent to close at 5,934.87 points with 15.816 million shares.
BR Oil and Gas Index closed at 3,869.72 points, down 55.58 points or 1.42 percent with 17.610 million shares.
BR Tech. & Comm. Index plunged by 123.97 points or 3.11 percent to close at 3,864.52 points with 88.407 million shares.
An analyst at Topline Securities said that Pakistan equities slid further where the benchmark KSE-100 Index settled at 44,833 level, down 1.48 percent.
Profit-taking has been witnessed across the board on higher international commodities prices as market made an intraday low of 773 points. Initial pressure came from TRG where the stock closed at its lower limit. Also, Cements and Banks were also under the hammer where LUCK, PSO, MCB, and ENGRO were the major laggards in today’s trading session.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2022
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