KARACHI: Pakistan Stock Exchange Friday witnessed a bearish trend due to selling pressure on investor concerns over prevailing economic and political situation in the country.
The benchmark KSE-100 Index plunged by 423.60 points or 1.09 percent and closed at 38,407.98 points. The index hit 38,982.77 points intraday high and 38,291.70 points intraday low.
Trading activity remained extremely low as daily volumes on the ready counter decreased to 93.450 million shares as compared to 157.822 million shares traded Thursday. The daily traded value on the ready counter declined to Rs 3.508 billion against Thursday’s Rs 6.406 billion.
BRIndex100 decreased by 49.9 points or 1.3 percent to close at 3,790.42 points with a turnover of 75.482 million shares.
BRIndex30 declined by 196.05 points or 1.44 percent to close at 13,397.50 points with total daily trading volumes of 55.590 million shares.
Foreign investors however remained net buyers of shares worth $921,935. The market capitalization declined by Rs 45 billion to Rs 6.134 trillion. Out of total 314 active scrips, 194 closed in negative and 103 in positive while the value of 17 stocks remained unchanged.
PPL was the volume leader with 8.309 million shares however declined by Rs 1.16 to close at Rs 72.92 followed by WorldCall Telecom that lost Rs 0.02 to close at Rs 1.11 with 5.645 million shares. Chani Chem (B) closed at Rs 6.68, down Rs 0.53 with 5.054 million shares.
Bhanero Textile and Nestle Pakistan were the top gainers increasing by Rs 82.00 and Rs 50.00 respectively to close at Rs 1177.00 and Rs 5310.00 while Indus Motor Co and Philip Morris Pak were the top losers declining by Rs 58.15 and Rs 35.00 respectively to close at Rs 841.35 and Rs 530.00.
An analyst at Arif Habib Limited said that a negative session was recorded at the PSX. The market opened in the green but bears rapidly took control, driving the index into the red throughout the first session as investor participation was low due to the uncertainty surrounding the talks to revive the IMF program.
The second session began with the same negative sentiments, but due to the weekend investor-booked profit that led the market to make an intraday low of 539.88 points. Volumes on the main-board remained reasonable, with third-tier companies dominating the volume board.
Sectors contributing to the performance include Commercial Banks (down 82.1 points), Technology & Communication (down 60.8 points), Cement (down 58.8 points), E&P (down 53.4 points) and OMCs (down 41.0 points).
BR Automobile Assembler Index declined by 105.4 points or 1.47 percent to close at 7,061.99 points with total turnover of 2.487 million shares.
BR Cement Index plunged by 75.54 points or 2.19 percent to close at 3,373.59 points with 7.913 million shares.
BR Commercial Banks Index lost 73.86 points or 0.98 percent to close at 7,433.55 points with 5.640 million shares.
BR Power Generation and Distribution Index inched down by 14.3 points or 0.23 percent to close at 6,152.18 points with 7.112 million shares.
BR Oil and Gas Index fell by 57.5 points or 1.49 percent to close at 3,814.04 points with 18.676 million shares.
BR Tech. & Comm. Index decreased by 76.06 points or 1.85 percent to close at 4,043.12 points with 14.533 million shares.
Ahsan Mehanti at Arif Habib Corporation said that stocks fell across-the-board on uncertainty over the SBP policy statement due next week amid high inflation and investor concerns over ongoing forex ‘crisis’.
He said Pak rupee instability, dismal data on textile exports falling by 16.47 percent on YoY in December 2022 and uncertainty over outcome of Pak-IMF negotiations on program conditions amid political uncertainty played a catalyst role in bearish close.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2023
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