PSX hit by selling pressure: BRIndex100 edges down

KARACHI: Pakistan Stock Exchange Tuesday opened on a positive note however selling pressure at the fag end forced it to close in negative territory.

BRIndex100 lost 24.81 points or 0.56 percent to close at 4,417.65 points. BRIndex100 hit intraday high of 4,477.89 and intraday low of 4,411.32 points. Volumes stood at 609.784 million shares.

BRIndex30 decreased by 139.56 points or 0.61 percent to close at 22,700.69 points with total daily turnover of 426.157 million shares.

The KSE-100 Index declined by 184.89 points or 0.43 percent and closed at 42,346.42 points. Trading activities however improved as daily volumes on ready counter increased to 662.804 million shares as compared to 509.522 million shares traded on Monday.

Foreign investors however remained net buyers of shares worth $873,472. Total market capitalization declined by Rs 20 billion to Rs 7.946 trillion. Out of total 438 active scrips, 281 closed in negative and 140 in positive while the value of 17 stocks remained unchanged.

Hascol Petroleum was the volume leader with 63.860 million shares however lost Rs 0.24 to close at Rs 22.75 followed by K-Electric that gained Rs 0.02 to close at Rs 4.12 with 54.037 million shares. Nestle Pakistan and Unilever Foods were the top gainers increasing by Rs 213.00 and Rs 100.00 respectively to close at Rs 7000.00 and Rs 13500.00 while Gillette Pak and Thal Ind. Corp were the top losers declining by Rs 24.99 and Rs 20.91 respectively to close at Rs 315.01 and Rs 258.08.

BR Automobile Assembler Index decreased by 30.72 points or 0.39 percent to close at 7,939.73 points with total turnover of 5.975 million shares.

BR Cement Index lost 8.29 points or 0.14 percent to close at 5,971.81 points with 74.212 million shares.

BR Commercial Banks Index declined by 55.39 points or 0.64 percent to close at 8,559.86 points with 65.954 million shares.

BR Power Generation and Distribution Index fell by 23.26 points or 0.44 percent to close at 5,218.82 points with 63.413 million shares.

BR Oil and Gas Index closed at 4,197.57 points, down 7.46 points or 0.18 percent with 77.073 million shares.

BR Tech. & Comm. Index plunged by 37.64 points or 1.88 percent to close at 1,963.04 points with 50.382 million shares.

An analyst at Arif Habib Limited said that the market opened on a positive note, maintained positive momentum during the session but selling pressure in the end brought the index down in negative zone.

Profit booking continues from past sessions, however, investors have generally been switching positions from stocks that have nearly doubled from their recent bottoms (Cement) into stocks that have had muted performance (Banks & O&GMCs).

ENGRO saw selling pressure due to it being ex-dividend, however, prospects of increase in price of fertilizer kept the buying interest alive.

Cement sector stocks performed well during the session on the back of increase in cement prices in North region however, profit booking brought the prices down again.

O&GMCs topped the volumes with 74.2 million shares, followed by Cement (74.1 million shares) and Power (63.4 million shares).

Sectors contributing to the performance include Banks (down 66 points), Fertilizer (down 50 points), Inv Banks (down 25 points), Technology (down 25 points) and Insurance (down 16 points).

Stocks that contributed positively to the index include MTL (up 13 points), NESTLE (up 11 points), MLCF (up 10 points), THALL (up 7 points) and EPCL (up 6 points). Stocks that contributed negatively include ENGRO (down 39 points), DAWH (down 22 points), UBL (down 21 points), HBL (down 20 points) and TRG (down 18 points).

Copyright Business Recorder, 2020