Equities shed gains

KARACHI: Pakistan Stock Exchange Wednesday opened on strong positive note and remained in green zone for most part of the day, however closed in red zone due to profit-taking at the fag end. The benchmark KSE-100 Index hit 41,820.89 points intraday high and 41,382.56 points intraday low before closing at 41,435.13 points, down 83.10 points or 0.20 percent.

Trading activity also remained low as daily volumes on the ready counter decreased to 220.560 million shares as compared to 230.658 million shares traded Tuesday. Daily traded value on the ready counter declined to Rs 8.028 billion against Tuesday’s Rs 9.623 billion.

BRIndex100 lost 8.72 points or 0.21 percent to close at 4,155.74 points with total daily turnover of 205.321 million shares.

BRIndex30 declined by 159.74 points or 1.01 percent to close at 15,627.03 points with total daily trading volumes of 147.346 million shares.

Foreign investors also remained on the selling side and withdrew $4.487 million from Pakistan capital market. Total market capitalization declined by Rs 11 billion to Rs 6.813 trillion. Out of total 337 active scrips, 165 closed in negative and 138 in positive while the value of 34 stocks remained unchanged.

TPL Properties was the volume leader with 29.302 million shares and gained Rs 0.31 to close at Rs 21.47 followed by Cnergyico PK that lost Rs 0.01 to close at Rs 5.01 with 17.890 million shares. Ghani Global Holding closed at the previous day’s closing level of Rs 16.86 without any change with 9.735 million shares.

Bata Pak and Colgate Palmolive were the top gainers increasing by Rs 110.71 and Rs 36.99, respectively to close at Rs 2,289.00 and Rs 2,140.00 while Sapphire Fiber and Premium Textile were the top losers declining by Rs 94.53 and Rs 67.05 respectively to close at Rs 1,165.97 and Rs 826.95.

Analyst at Topline Securities said Pakistan equities closed slightly negative where benchmark KSE-100 Index settled at 41,435 level, down 0.20 percent.

The day kicked off on a positive note continuing its Tuesday’s momentum where market make an intraday high of 302 points, however this positivity didn’t sustain at the bourse and some profit taking has been witnessed which led the market to close slight negative. Major negative trading contributor in the trading session was SYS, and TRG cumulatively dented the Index by 57 points.

BR Automobile Assembler Index lost 53.12 points or 0.58 percent to close at 9,156.70 points with total turnover of 2.496 million shares.

BR Cement Index inched up by 0.23 points or 0.01 percent to close at 4,492.29 points with 15.982 million shares.

BR Commercial Banks Index gained 4.12 points or 0.05 percent to close at 8,511.52 points with 8.938 million shares.

BR Power Generation and Distribution Index added 24.5 points or 0.42 percent to close at 5,824.95 points with 17.044 million shares.

BR Oil and Gas Index fell by 8.78 points or 0.24 percent to close at 3,679.14 points with 18.401 million shares.

BR Tech. & Comm. Index declined by 62.52 points or 1.51 percent to close at 4,074.56 points 30.266 million shares.

An analyst at Arif Habib Limited said that the benchmark KSE-100 Index witnessed a bullish trend as the index traded in green zone for most of the session.

The PSX opened in the positive zone although in the last trading hour investors opted for profit taking as political noise built up. Volumes continued to remain decent in the main board, on the flip side hefty volumes were witnessed in the 3rd tier stocks.

Sectors contributing to the performance include Technology (down 57.3 points), Fertilizer (down 30.1 points), E&Ps (down 24.6 points), Engineering (down 7.1 points) and Automobile Assemblers (down 7.1 points).

Copyright Business Recorder, 2022