Stocks stay depressed

KARACHI: Pakistan Stock Exchange Thursday remained under severe pressure due to prevailing political noise and depreciating PKR against the USD. However, value buying in last trading hour supported the market to largely recover its intraday losses.

The benchmark KSE-100 Index hit 40,418.97 points intraday low and 40,986.17 points intraday high before closing at 40,927.95 points, down 37.63 points or 0.09 percent.

The daily trading volumes on the ready counter increased to 190.091 million shares as compared to 170.416 million shares traded on Wednesday while total daily traded value on ready counter increased to Rs 6.322 billion against previous day’s Rs 4.827 billion.

BRIndex100 gained 6.72 points or 0.16 percent to close at 4,094.44 points with total daily turnover of 177.910 million shares.

BRIndex30 increased by 182.7 points or 1.22 percent to close at 15,198.22 points with total daily trading volumes of 140.597 million shares.

Foreign investors also remained net sellers of shares worth $139,058. Total market capitalization declined by Rs 6 billion to Rs 6.722 trillion. Out of 328 active scrips, 203 closed in negative and 106 in positive while the value of 19 stocks remained unchanged.

WorldCall Telecom was the volume leader with 19.954 million shares and closed at previous day’s closing level of Rs 1.14 without any change followed by Cnergyico PK that lost Rs 0.06 to close at Rs 4.86 with 18.598 million shares. TRG Pak increased by Rs 5.65 to close at Rs 119.72 with 17.567 million shares.

Sanofi-Aventis and Sapphire Fiber were the top gainers increasing by Rs 79.00 and Rs 71.93 respectively to close at Rs 1,229.00 and Rs 1,228.50 while Rafhan Maize and Hallmark Company were the top losers declining by Rs 595.00 and Rs 13.50 respectively to close at Rs 9,055.00 and Rs 166.50.

An analyst at Arif Habib Limited said that the PSX witnessed a negative session due to prevailing political noise. The benchmark KSE-100 Index nosedived following the same trend from the previous session although in the last trading hour value buying was recorded. Volumes continued to thrive in the main board whereas hefty volumes were observed in the 3rd tier stocks.

Sectors contributing to the performance include Banks (down 19.3 points), Autos (down 16.3 points), Inv. Banks (down 11.6 points), Pharma (down 11.3 points) and Power (down 11.2 points).

BR Automobile Assembler Index decreased by 79.01 points or 0.87 percent to close at 8,996.78 points with total turnover of 368,021 million shares.

BR Cement Index gained 9.9 points or 0.23 percent to close at 4,380.41 points with 13.552 million shares.

BR Commercial Banks Index lost 19.68 points or 0.23 percent to close at 8,528.54 points with 21.459 million shares.

BR Power Generation and Distribution Index inched down by 29.76 points or 0.53 percent to close at 5,599.25 points with 17.760 million shares.

BR Oil and Gas Index fell by 10.27 points or 0.28 percent to close at 3,636.78 points with 13.813 million shares.

BR Tech. & Comm. Index increased by 86.25 points or 2.19 percent to close at 4,029.17 points with 47.245 million shares.

Mubashir Anis Naviwala at JS Global Capital said that bearish spell continued for the fourth consecutive session this week due to political noise and rupee depreciation. The KSE100 Index moved between 569 points and touched a high and low of 40,987 and 40,418, respectively to eventually close the day at 40,928, down 38 points. Volumes during the day stood at 190 million shares where WTL (zero percent), CNERGY (down 1.2 percent), TRG (up 5.0 percent), KEL (up 2.8 percent) and SILK (down 0.9 percent) were the major contributors.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2022