Equities depict mixed trend on LSE

Equities depicted mixed trend on the Lahore Stock Exchange (LSE) on Wednesday and finally succumbed of profit taking amid selling pressure in the cement and oil sectors shares. The LSE-25 index slide down by 3.51 points and ended at 2449.56 against 2453.07 of Tuesday while transaction volume marginally reduced to 16.108 million shares as compared to previous volume of 16.872 million shares.
D.G. Khan Cement, Lucky Cement, Maple Leaf Cement, Adamjee Insurance, Pakistan Reinsurance, Arif Habib Securities, PSO, Pak Oil Fields, Attock Refinery, OGDC and Engro Chemical remained under pressure because of profit taking. However, National Bank, Bank of Punjab, Bank Alfalah, MCB Bank, Royal Bank of Scotland, Habib Bank and Kot Addu Power resisted declines and closed in green zone.
The market opened on a healthy note and showed upward moves during early hour's trading. However, tempo could not remain intact and equities started moving up and down till the end of trading. Finally, the market closed with marginal declines due to lacking buying support.
According to the market pundits, the cement companies remained under pressure on the news of reduction in the cement prices. As a result, the cement companies including D.G. Khan Cement, Lucky Cement, Maple Leaf Cement could not sustain as the investors offloaded their positions in the cement sector. Similarly, the oil sector's companies witnessed profit taking that dragged the market into red zone. The experts were of the view that market would take direction in next week following announcement of the monetary policy while it is expected to remain range-bound on Thursday.
The losers were more than the gainers, as out of a total of 105 companies, 33 showed strength, 35 posted loss, while 37 companies stayed glued to their previous levels. BOC Pakistan gained Rs 4.76, MCB Bank was appreciated by Rs 4.46, Pakistan Refinery was improved by Rs 4.38 while PPL and National Bank were up by Rs 2.27 and Rs 2.15, respectively.
Treet Corporation lost Rs 26.33, PSO was declined by Rs 5.19, Indus Motors Company was depreciated by Rs 4.57 while Lucky Cement and Pakistan Oil Fields were down by Rs 3.86 and Rs 2.98, respectively. D.G. Khan Cement topped the volume leaders with trading of 2.569 million shares while Arif Habib Securities stayed as runner up with 2.333 million shares.