The equities on Tuesday failed to maintain upward trend on the Lahore Stock Exchange (LSE) and registered declines amid selling pressure on account of profit taking in banking and fertiliser sectors' shares. The LSE-25 index reduced to 2303.96 against 2352.31 of Monday, depicting a decline of 48.35 points while the transaction volume significantly improved to 39 million shares as compared to last day volume of 27.278 million shares.
United Bank, Bank of Punjab of the banking sector, Fauji Fertiliser and Engro Chemical of the fertiliser sector besides, Attock Refinery, Adamjee Insurance, Lucky Cement and D.G. Khan Cement helped market avert more declines and closed with gains. However, National Bank, MCB Bank, Habib Bank, Bank of Alfalah, NIB Bank, PSO, PPL, Pak Oil Fields, OGDC, and Nishat Mills remained under pressure and closed in negative zone.
The market opened on a healthy note on account of reduction in the interest rate in the new monetary policy announced by the State Bank of Pakistan and stayed in green zone for few minutes and crossed 2384 points. However, profit taking in selective shares did not let the market stay in green zone. As a result, the market started declining and finally closed with a loss of over 48 points.
The analysts were of the view that there was nothing bad on the economic or political front that could push the market down. It was the technical correction that dragged the market into negative zone. The investors preferred profit taking to get out the market at available margin, the experts said.
The State Bank in its monetary policy has reduced mark up rate by 100-base points, which would help improve trading activity in coming days. Moreover, the foreign donors at the Tokyo conference also posed confidence in Pakistan's economy. As soon as the foreign assistance would start realising, it would give a boost to the country's economy in general and stocks business in particular in coming days, they added. Declining stocks were ahead of advancing ones as of 122 companies, 28 registered gains, 44 stayed in negative zone, while 50 were closed at their previous levels.
Attock Refinery posted a gain of Rs 6.21, Fauji Fertiliser was improved by Rs 4.75, Packages Limited was appreciated by Rs 4.61 while Adamjee Insurance and Lucky Cement were up by Rs 4.12 and Rs 2.80, respectively. MCB Bank lost Rs 10.02, PSO declined by Rs 5.87, PPL shed Rs 5.83, while National Bank and Pakistan Reinsurance were down by 3.69 and Rs 3.16, respectively. Bank Alfalah with trading of 6.919 million shares topped the volume leaders followed by Bank of Punjab with 6.072 million shares.
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