PSX marginally down

Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) Tuesday opened on a positive note and the benchmark KSE-100 index hit 42,411.96 points, up 278.42 points in the intra-day trade. However, the investors opted for profit-taking after the mid-session pushing the index in negative at 42,113.91 points, down 19.63 points. Trading activity improved and the daily trading volumes increased to 480.657 million shares as compared to 333.363 million shares traded Monday.
The market capitalisation decreased by Rs 5 billion to stand at Rs 8.523 trillion. Out of total 434 scrips, 233 closed in negative, 186 in positive while the value of 15 stocks remained unchanged. Bank of Punjab was the volume leader with 57.288 million shares. It gained Rs 0.19 to close at Rs 19.52 followed by K-Electric that lost Rs 0.02 to close at Rs 9.29 with 31.510 million shares. Pak International Bulk Terminal surged by Rs 1.49 to close at Rs 33.00 with 29.534 million shares.
Bata Pak and Island Textile were the top gainers with Rs 100.00 and Rs 67.52, respectively to close at Rs 4,200.00 and Rs 1,418.08. Wyeth Pak and Mari Petroleum were the top losers with Rs 121.68 and Rs 18.65, respectively to close at Rs 3471.36 and Rs 1025.96. Ahsan Mehanti at Arif Habib Corporation said that the index closed flat amid late session profit-taking in select scrips. The investors remained cautious ahead of US presidential elections likely to impact foreign inflows. Strong sales data for cement for the period of July to October 2016, reports on rising fertilisers off-take, likely announcement of the federal government to give incentive package to textile sector to boost exports played a catalyst role in record buying in early hours, however after mid-session investors opted for profit taking.
Nabeel Haroon at JS Global Capital said that the market opened on a positive note and rallied to make an intra-day high of 280 points but came under selling pressure during the late hours of trading session as the index fell to close on a flat-note. Investors' interest was seen in the cement sector on the back of the numbers released by APCMA that showed 12.87 percent growth in the cement dispatches for the month of October 2016.
An analyst at Global Securities said the local bourse witnessed a volatile session as index traded within a range of 404 points whereas settled with a mere change of minus 20 points. Following regional markets KSE-100 index opened on an optimistic note with a positive change of 280 points however during the later hour's index succumbed to selling pressure owing to profit taking in major heavyweight stocks.