KARACHI: Pakistan Stock Exchange Tuesday witnessed a bearish trend and closed in deep red with heavy losses on investor concerns over depreciating PKR against the USD and prevailing economic and political situation.
The market opened on positive note, but failed to sustain in the green zone due to selling pressure in various sectors.
The benchmark KSE-100 Index declined by 299.68 points or 0.72 percent and closed at 41,220.91 points. The index hit 41,643.00 points intraday high and 41,077.46 points intraday low during the session.
Trading activity slightly improved as daily volumes on ready counter increased to 156.574 million shares as compared to 148.214 million shares traded on Monday however, total daily traded value on ready counter declined to Rs 5.668 billion against previous day’s Rs 7.519 billion.
BRIndex100 fell by 40.39 points or 0.97 percent to close at 4,116.50 points with total daily turnover of 139.825 million shares.
BRIndex30 decreased by 169.93 points or 1.1 percent to close at 15,302.00 points with total daily trading volumes of 108.091 million shares.
Foreign investors however remained net buyers of shares worth $355,782. Total market capitalization declined by Rs 59 billion to Rs 6.773 trillion. Out of total 322 active scrips, 204 closed in negative and only 95 in positive while the value of 23 stocks remained unchanged.
K-Electric was the volume leader with 18.418 million shares however lost Rs 0.08 to close at Rs 3.00 followed by TPL Properties that gained Rs 0.29 to close at Rs 19.90 with 14.436 million shares. TRG Pak declined by Rs 3.70 to close at Rs 114.64 with 14.352 million shares.
Sapphire Fiber and Premium Textile were the top gainers increasing by Rs 75.06 and Rs 15.00 respectively to close at Rs 1075.88 and Rs 799.00 while Sapphire Textile and Faisal Spinning were the top losers declining by Rs 70.51 and Rs 30.60 respectively to close at Rs 1020.50 and Rs 408.40.
An analyst at Arif Habib Limited said that the market observed a negative session as the US dollar continued its flight against PKR. The benchmark KSE-100 index opened in the positive zone but failed to sustain in the green zone which led the index to an intra-day low of negative 441.88 points and close in the red zone. Volumes remained decent in the main board whereas hefty volumes were witnessed in the 3rd tier stocks.
Sectors contributing to the performance include E&P (down 123.2 points), Technology (down 57.8 points), Banks (down 27.3 points), Cement (down 24.1 points) and Power (down 23.6 points).
BR Automobile Assembler Index gained 21.13 points or 0.23 percent to close at 9,068.97 points with total turnover of 320,932 shares.
BR Cement Index decreased by 31.98 points or 0.72 percent to close at 4,415.97 points with 7.814 million shares.
BR Commercial Banks Index lost 25.83 points or 0.3 percent to close at 8,574.49 points with 4.899 million shares.
BR Power Generation and Distribution Index declined by 64.58 points or 1.13 percent to close at 5,635.75 points with 23.320 million shares.
BR Oil and Gas Index plunged by 79.65 points or 2.1 percent to close at 3,714.95 points with 19.226 million shares.
BR Tech. & Comm. Index closed at 3,977.53 points, down 68.17 points or 1.68 percent with 31.487 million shares.
An analyst at Topline Securities said that Pakistan equities closed negative where benchmark KSE-100 Index settled at 41,256 level, down 0.64 percent.
After a slight positive opening, profit-taking witnessed wherein the market made intraday low of negative 441 points over economic and political conditions. Major decliners in the trading session were PPL, TRG, OGDC, LUCK and UBL cumulatively dented the Index by 199 points.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2022