KARACHI: Pakistan Stock Exchange Monday witnessed a bearish trend due to across-the-board selling by local and foreign investors.

BRIndex100 decreased by 55.4 points or 1.18 percent to close at 4,653.37 points. BRIndex100 hit intraday high of 4,727.59 points and intraday low of 4,590.35 points. Volumes stood at 276.216 million shares.

BRIndex30 declined by 426.42 points or 1.91 percent to close at 21,857.89 points with a turnover of 186.199 million shares.

The KSE-100 Index plunged by 255.76 points or 0.57 percent and closed below 45,000 psychological level at 44,817.76 points. Trading activities remained low as daily volumes on ready counter decreased to 301.392 million shares as compared to 369.537 million shares traded last Friday.

Foreign investors also remained net sellers of shares worth $2.649 million. The market capitalization declined by Rs 59 billion to Rs 7.772 trillion. Out of total 547 active scrips, 382 closed in negative and 143 in positive while the value of 22 stocks remained unchanged.

Unity Foods was the volume leader with 34.951 million shares however declined by Rs 1.11 to close at Rs 30.80 followed by WorldCall Telecom that lost Rs 0.11 to close at Rs 2.76 with 32.646 million shares. Bhanero Textile and Colgate Palmolive were the top gainers increasing by Rs 82.23 and Rs 35.15 respectively to close at Rs 1178.73 and Rs 2480.00 while Unilever Foods and Rafhan Maize were the top losers declining by Rs 1635.00 and Rs 149.50 respectively to close at Rs 20165.00 and Rs 10500.00.

BR Automobile Assembler Index decreased by 44.79 points or 0.51 percent to close at 8,695.43 points with total turnover of 2.114 million shares.

BR Cement Index lost 21.53 points or 0.36 percent to close at 5,884.14 points with 15.772 million shares.

BR Commercial Banks Index declined by 91.41 points or 0.97 percent to close at 9,339.63 points with 32.525 million shares.

BR Power Generation and Distribution Index fell by 18.53 points or 0.34 percent to close at 5,460.59 points with 9.388 million shares.

BR Oil and Gas Index closed at 3,693.17 points, down 7.02 points or 0.19 percent with 13.506 million shares.

BR Tech. & Comm. Index plunged by 41.65 points or 0.88 percent to close at 4,699.51 points with 68.189 million shares.

An analyst at Arif Habib Limited said that the market posted gains of 163 points earlier in the session, but faced the onslaught sooner which caused the erosion of these gains and netting a loss of 732 points during the session.

Leveraged positions mostly got thrashing, however, resumption of PKR slippage was another reason cited for the panic selling in market.

Volumes remained thin compared with the activity in recent times, where ample volumes were witnessed in blue chips. Fertilizer, E&P, O&GMCs, Cement stocks saw quick paced buying by the end of session that helped the index pull back. Sectors contributing to the performance include Banks (down 101 points), Refinery (down 34 points), Paper and Board (down 25 points), Inv. Banks (down 23 points) and Pharma (down 20 points).

Stocks that contributed positively to the index include SYS (up 50 points), FFC (up 18 points), MTL (up 8 points), KTML (up 7 points) and EPCL (up 7 points). Stocks that contributed negatively include TRG (down 51 points), HBL (down 51 points), MEBL (down 29 points), UBL (down 18 points) and PSO (down 16 points).

Copyright Business Recorder, 2021