Pakistan Stock Exchange Thursday witnessed a negative trend due to selling in various sectors, mainly by local investors. BRIndex100 lost 21.82 points or 0.49 percent to close at 4,395.11 points. BRIndex100 touched intraday high of 4,420.90 and intraday low of 4,387.76 points. Volumes stood at 213.766 million shares. BRIndex30 however closed at 23,009.79 points, up 20.46 points or 0.09 percent with a turnover of 161.093 million shares.
The benchmark KSE-100 index declined by 176.60 points or 0.43 percent to close at 41,367.38 points. Trading activity also remained low as daily volumes on the ready counter decreased to 224.675 million shares as compared to 276.929 million shares traded Wednesday.
Foreign investors however remained net buyers of shares worth $0.03 million. The market capitalization declined by Rs 36 billion to Rs 8.224 trillion. Out of total 358 active scrips, 219 closed in negative, 120 in positive while the value of 19 stocks remained unchanged.
Bank of Punjab was the volume leader with 31.857 million shares. It gained Re 0.12 to close at Rs 13.47 followed by Lotte Chemical that lost Re 0.12 to close at Rs 18.74 with 22.523 million shares.
Jubilee Life Ins and Island Textile were the top gainers with Rs 30.99 and Rs 17.40, respectively to close at Rs 650.99 and Rs 1,577.40. Philip Morris Pak and Wyeth Pak were the top losers with Rs 58.90 and Rs 34.50, respectively to close at Rs 3,539.10 and Rs 1,225.50.
BR Commercial Banks Index lost 30.44 points or 0.36 percent to close at 8,518.16 points with a turnover of 42.608 million shares.
BR Cement Index declined by 74.2 points or 1.57 percent to close at 4,641.93 points with 19.357 million shares.
BR Oil and Gas Index decreased by 39.51 points or 0.74 percent to close at 5,264.48 points with 3.466 million shares.
BR Tech. & Comm. Index closed at 1,209.38 points, down 0.97 points or 0.08 percent with 22.735 million shares.
BR Power Generation and Distribution Index gained 110.9 points or 1.81 percent to close at 6,228.09 points with 15.875 million shares.
An analyst at Arif Habib Limited said that the KSE-100 index opened on a positive note but couldn''t maintain the drive and gradually entered bearish territory. The index oscillated from plus 107 points to minus 259 points during the session.
Sector that has consistently been in the limelight is Chemical, which again showed volumes in excess of 40 million shares being traded. Among Banks, BOP fared well, which reflected high trading volume close to 30 million with an average price of 13.54. Steel, Cement, Banks, Refinery and E&P sectors lagged behind but investors bought intently yet lacking aggression. Among Cement, DGKC showed investors'' confidence and Steel had MUGHAL.
Stocks that contributed positively include MCB (up 42 points), HUBC (up 15 points), KEL (up 12 points), JLICL (up 10 points) and FFC (up 10 points) while scripts that contributed negatively include UBL (down 52 points), HBL (down 48 points), LUCK (down 29 points), PSO (down 27 points) and POL (down 25 points).

Copyright Business Recorder, 2018

Comments

Comments are closed.