The Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) remained in the correction phase on Wednesday, as the benchmark KSE-100 Index lost nearly 400 points during trading.
At close, the benchmark index settled at 62,448.01, a decrease of 385.02 points or 0.61%, but not before it hit an intra-day low of 61,082.50, down over 1,750 points.
Selling pressure was witnessed with index-heavy sectors including automobile assemblers, cement, chemical, commercial banks, oil and gas exploration companies, OMCs and pharmaceuticals trading in the red zone.
At close on Tuesday, the benchmark index had lost nearly 4% to settle at 62,833.03, a decrease of 2,371.64 points on account of a correction that most analysts say was expected.
The ongoing correction comes after the Pakistani market showed impressive growth in recent weeks, as the index climbed to record high levels of over 66,000.
“Profit-taking was overdue as the market had seen a remarkable run lately,” Sana Tawfik, an analyst at Arif Habib Limited (AHL), told Business Recorder. “Investors were waiting to sell their shares which they believe were overpriced,” she added.
The market expert said that share financing also crossed 30% which is causing markets to fall.
It is pertinent to mention that the KSE-100 Index has seen a massive bullish run this year, gaining nearly 60%.
Sectors dragging the benchmark KSE-100 downwards included banking (117.68 points), cement (74.94 points) and fertilizer (55.36 points).
Volume on the all-share index decreased to 1.19 billion from 1.51 billion a session before.
Meanwhile, the value of shares declined to Rs26 billion from Rs29.1 billion in the previous session.
K-Electric Limited was the volume leader with 280.81 million shares, WorldCall Telecom followed with 211.12 million, and Cnergyico PK at 54.41 million shares.
Shares of 362 companies were traded on Wednesday, of which 107 registered an increase, 246 recorded a fall, while 9 remained unchanged.
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