BRIndex100 drops 57.14 points

Pakistan Stock Exchange witnessed a bearish trend on the first day of the fresh trading week Monday. Investors opted to remain on the sidelines due to lack of triggers and uncertainty on the political front. BRIndex100 lost 57.14 points or 1.31 percent to close at 4,306.51 points. BRIndex100 touched intraday high of 4,368.76 and intraday low of 4,301.17 points. Volumes stood at 80.568 million shares.
BRIndex30 decreased by 261.68 points or 1.23 percent to 21,089.29 points with a turnover of 60.812 million shares. The benchmark KSE-100 index declined by 527.47 points or 1.29 percent to 40,316.93 points. Trading activity remained low as daily volumes decreased to 94.109 million shares as compared to 115.620 million shares traded Friday.
Foreign investors however remained net buyers of shares worth $1.8 million. The market capitalization decreased by Rs 83 billion to Rs 8.345 trillion. Out of total 350 active scrips, 258 closed in negative, only 68 in positive while the value of 24 stocks remained unchanged. TRG Pak was the volume leader with 13.031 million shares. However, it declined by Rs 1.55 to close at Rs 35.24 followed by Dost Steels that gained Rs 0.12 to close at Rs 13.42 with 8.129 million shares.
Philip Morris Pak and Sapphire Textile were the top gainers with Rs 143.92 and Rs 84.48, respectively to close at Rs 3,022.49 and Rs 1,879.48. Nestle Pakistan and Rafhan Maize were the top losers with Rs 600.00 and Rs 269.00, respectively to close at Rs 11,400.00 and Rs 6,700.00.
BR Commercial Banks Index lost 46.38 points or 0.6 percent to close at 7,704.54 points with total turnover of 3.681 million shares. BR Cement Index decreased by 77.85 points or 1.51 percent to close at 5,072.42 points with 2.780 million shares. BR Oil and Gas Index declined by 95.24 points or 1.83 percent to close at 5,098.15 points with 8.588 million shares.
BR Tech. & Comm. Index closed at 1,164.30 points, down 22.19 points or 1.87 percent with 20.003 million shares. BR Power Generation and Distribution Index lost 50.19 points or 0.8 percent to close at 6,206.21 points with total turnover of 4.585 million shares.
Danish Ladhani at JS Global Capital said that the KSE-100 index opened positive but remained under pressure throughout the day making an intraday high of (positive 79 points) to finally close at 40,317 levels (down 527 points). Market participation remained restricted owing to lack of triggers and political instability. ASTL closed positive (up 0.02 percent) as the company announced entering into a joint venture agreement with public listed Chinese company - Qingdao Huijintong Power Equipment Company Limited (HJT), to diversify into Electrical Transmission business. Banking sector continued its previous day trend where big banks such as NBP (down 1.92 percent), UBL (down 0.90 percent) and HBL (down 0.68 percent) lost value to close in the red zone. Moreover, E&P sector lost value to close in the red zone where OGDC (down 0.85 percent) POL (down 1.43 percent) and PPL (down 0.41 percent) were the major laggards of the mentioned sector due to pressure in the international oil prices. OMCs continued to face battering where PSO being the major supplier of the FO closed in the red (down 3.19 percent).