A declining trend persisted on Pakistan Stock Exchange as investors opted to offload their holdings on available margins Friday. BRIndex100 lost 56.62 points or 1.21 percent to close at 4,608.52 points. BRIndex100 touched intraday high of 4,668.62 and intraday low of 4,587.83 points. Volumes stood at 220.025 million shares. BRIndex30 decreased by 357.13 points or 1.49 percent to 23,672.40 points with a turnover of 157.981 million shares.
The benchmark KSE-100 index declined by 461.56 points or 1.06 percent to 42,933.72 points. Trading activity remained low as daily volumes on the ready counter decreased to 238.673 million shares as compared to 319.451 million shares traded Thursday.
Foreign investors however remained net buyers of shares worth $7.1 million. The market capitalization declined by Rs 99 billion to Rs 8.905 trillion. Out of total 368 active scrips, 276 closed in negative, only 80 in positive while the value of 12 stocks remained unchanged.
TRG Pak was the volume leader with 26.025 million shares. It, however, declined by Rs 1.03 to close at Rs 32.89 followed by WorldCall Telecom that lost Re 0.10 to close at Rs 2.80 with 15.221 million shares.
Colgate Palmolive and Wyeth Pak were the top gainers with Rs 134.00 and Rs 92.20, respectively to close at Rs 2,834.00 and Rs 1,936.36. Nestle Pakistan and Sanofi-Aventis were the top losers with Rs 500.00 and Rs 55.33, respectively to close at Rs 10,900.00 and Rs 1,444.67.
BR Commercial Banks Index lost 33.94 points or 0.39 percent to close at 8,743.44 points with total turnover of 18.054 million shares. BR Cement Index declined by 124.99 points or 2.21 percent to close at 5,521.93 points with 21.539 million shares. BR Oil and Gas Index decreased by 53.6 points or 1.02 percent to close at 5,217.36 points with 18.586 million shares.
BR Tech. & Comm. Index closed at 1,150.19 points, down 31.38 points or 2.66 percent with 50.064 million shares. BR Power Generation and Distribution Index lost 67.34 points or 1.05 percent to close at 6,330.87 points with 6.897 million shares.
Maaz Mulla at JS Global Capital said once again the KSE-100 Index succumbed to pressure as investors opted to book profits, as the index went below the 43,000 points mark. The local bourse made an intraday high of plus 41 points but shortly gave up to the bears to make an intraday low of minus 641 points to finally close down at 42,934 level, down 461 points. Major laggards at the bourse were PSO (down 3.88 percent), DGKC (down 4.93 percent), OGDC (down 1.41 percent), ENGRO (down 1.69 percent) and UBL (down 1.14 percent) contributing negative 158 points.
Investors opted to book profits in the cement sector where heavyweights DGKC (down 4.93 percent), KOHC (down 2.19 percent), MLCF (down 2.21 percent) and LUCK (down 0.01 percent) lost value to close in the red zone. The engineering sector remained under the hammer as the sector cumulatively lost 39 points, where ISL (down 5.0 percent), ASTL (down 4.07 percent) and INIL (down 3.0 percent) declined the most. E&P sector declined from its previous day close, where PPL (down 0.90 percent) and OGDC (down 1.41 percent) were the major losers of the mentioned sector.