KARACHI: Pakistan Stock Exchange Monday witnessed a bearish trend due to selling pressure on investor concerns over prevailing economic and political situation in the country.
The benchmark KSE-100 Index declined by 411.50 points or 1.00 percent and closed below 41,000 psychological level at 40,918.45 points. The index hit 41,390.51 points intraday high and 40,911.89 points intraday low.
Daily trading volumes on ready counter increased to 195.477 million shares as compared to 172.605 million shares traded on last Friday while daily traded value on ready counter declined to Rs 5.007 billion against previous session’s Rs 8.019 billion.
BRIndex100 decreased by 41.19 points or 0.99 percent to close at 4,137.37 points with daily turnover of 174.800 million shares. BRIndex30 plunged by 235.86 points or 1.56 percent to close at 14,837.26 points with total daily trading volumes of 128.193 million shares.
Foreign investors also remained net sellers of shares worth $487,873. Total market capitalization declined by Rs 73 billion to Rs 6.246 trillion. Out of total 310 active scrips, 169 closed in negative and 124 in positive while the value of 17 stocks remained unchanged.
Unity Foods was the volume leader with 25.054 million shares and gained Rs 0.58 to close at Rs 14.16 followed by WorldCall Telecom that closed at Rs 1.21, down Rs 0.04 with 16.643 million shares. Fauji Foods inched up by Rs 0.35 to close at Rs 6.07 with 15.140 million shares.
Unilever Foods and Premium Textile were the top gainers increasing by Rs 56.00 and Rs 31.28 respectively to close at Rs 18256.00 and Rs 448.35 while Pak Services and Sapphire Textile were the top losers declining by Rs 112.00 and Rs 85.47 respectively to close at Rs 1388.00 and Rs 1054.26.
An analyst at Arif Habib Limited said that a negative session was witnessed at PSX. The KSE-100 began on a positive note, but bears quickly took over as the index lost steam and ended the session in the red, owing to the state’s economic and political uncertainties, plunging the index to an intraday low of minus 420.71 points. Considering that investors chose to be cautious while trading, main board volumes dried up, while side board scrips dominated the volume board.
Sectors contributing to the performance include E&P (down 127.7 points), Fertilizer (down 75.4 points), Cement (down 59.8 points), Miscellaneous (down 59.0 points) and Commercial Banks (down 44.5 points).
BR Automobile Assembler Index decreased by 50.55 points or 0.67 percent to close at 7,504.01 points with total turnover of 7.556 million shares.
BR Cement Index declined by 77.44 points or 1.9 percent to close at 3,988.35 points with 20.417 million shares.
BR Commercial Banks Index lost 35.83 points or 0.43 percent to close at 8,305.30 points with 16.571 million shares.
BR Power Generation and Distribution Index fell by 46.39 points or 0.65 percent to close at 7,109.21 points with 3.861 million shares.
BR Oil and Gas Index plunged by 90.29 points or 2.24 percent to close at 3,942.39 points with 13.757 million shares.
BR Tech. & Comm. Index gained 10.91 points or 0.26 percent to close at 4,185.61 points with 28.376 million shares.
Muhammad Shuja Qureshi at JS Global Capital said that rising political noise and lack of progress on IMF’s ninth review induced selling pressure leading the market to tumble below the 41,000 level to close at 40,918 losing 411 points.
However, a few stocks managed to close at their upper circuits including DOL, HTL, RPL, and TREET.
The KSE-100 Index turnover was recorded at 92 million shares helped by activity in some second-tier stocks where UNITY (up 4.3 percent), WTL (down 3.2 percent), FFL (up 6.1 percent), MLCF (down 4.3 percent) and PIBTL (up 0.7 percent) were volume leaders.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2023
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