Stock market depressed

KARACHI: Pakistan Stock Exchange Tuesday remained under pressure due to rollover week.

The market witnessed a positive trend after opening the session, however failed to maintain this momentum and spent most part of the trading session in the red. The benchmark KSE-100 Index hit 42,523.35 points intraday high and 42,156.98 points intraday low before closing at 42,190.03 points, down 157.20 points or 0.37 percent.

Trading activity also remained low as total daily volumes on ready counter decreased to 195.400 million shares as compared to 226.743 million shares traded Monday however total daily traded value on the ready counter increased to Rs 6.242 billion against previous session’s Rs 6.052 billion.

BRIndex100 lost 32.0 points or 0.75 percent to close at 4,215.23 points with total daily turnover of 124.898 million shares.

BRIndex30 declined by 350.55 points or 2.19 percent to close at 15,680.36 points with total daily trading volumes of 72.869 million shares.

Foreign investors also remained net sellers of shares worth $251,045. Total market capitalization declined by Rs 25 billion to Rs 6.824 trillion. Out of total 334 active scrips, 208 closed in negative and only 96 in positive while the value of 30 stocks remained unchanged.

Hascol Petroleum was the volume leader with 35.212 million shares and gained Rs 0.12 to close at Rs 6.81 followed by WorldCall Telecom that lost Rs 0.04 to close at Rs 1.55 with 13.008 million shares. G3 TechClassBR closed at Rs 0.31, down Rs 0.55 with 11.058 million shares.

Sapphire Fiber and Khyber Tobacco were the top gainers increasing by Rs 52.48 and Rs 22.79 respectively to close at Rs 1,084.40 and Rs 326.69 while Bhanero Textile and Colgate Palmolive were the top losers declining by Rs 32.44 and Rs 24.50 respectively to close at Rs 982.06 and Rs 2,038.00.

“Due to rollover week, the PSX remained under pressure,” an analyst at Arif Habib Limited said. Despite starting the day off in the green, the market was unable to maintain the positive momentum and spent majority of the trading session in red. On the contrary, major financial announcements were made but investors’ participation was subdued as volumes decreased overall. The 3rd tier equities continued to lead in terms of volumes.

Sectors contributing to the performance include Technology and Communication (down 111.9 points), Cement (down 46.6 points), Automobile Assembler (down 13.8 points), Commercial Banks (down 11.9 points) and Chemical (down 10.9 points).

BR Automobile Assembler Index decreased by 92.37 points or 0.98 percent to close at 9,287.35 points with total turnover of 4.571 million shares.

BR Cement Index declined by 59.58 points or 1.28 percent to close at 4,583.11 points with 7.900 million shares.

BR Commercial Banks Index lost 14.5 points or 0.18 percent to close at 8,202.59 points with 5.501 million shares.

BR Power Generation and Distribution Index gained 53.45 points or 0.79 percent to close at 6,815.70 points with 21.081 million shares.

BR Oil and Gas Index inched up by 11.27 points or 0.3 percent to close at 3,774.87 points with 47.017 million shares.

BR Tech. & Comm. Index plunged by 150.51 points or 3.4 percent to close at 4,280.02 points with 36.372 million shares.

Mohammad Waqar Iqbal at JS Global Capital said that the bourse witnessed range bound activity and the KSE-100 index closed at the level of 42,190, losing 157 points.

Traded volume stood at 195 million shares where HASCOL (up 1.8 percent), WTL (down 2.5 percent), GTECHBR (down 64.0 percent), NCPL (down 5.3 percent) and PTC (up 2.6 percent) were the major contributors.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2022