Negative sentiment prevails

A negative sentiment prevailed on Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) on the first trading day of the week Monday. Investor concerns for foreign outflows pushed down the benchmark KSE-100 index below 31,000-point level. The index lost 334 points to reach at 30,678 point compared to 31,012 point in the previous session. Ahsan Mehanti, an analyst at Arif Habib, said stock closed bearish on investor concerns for foreign outflows and ongoing regulatory oversight at Pakistan stock exchange.
He said that institutional support witnessed in banking and fertilizers scrips on strong earnings. While, Major recovery in global equities and crude prices failed to impact the weak sentiments at PSX, he added. Muhammad Rizwan head of sales Topline Securities said that bear market sentiments dominated the local bourse ahead of future rollover week as the benchmark KSE-100 index closed below 31,000 index level after 26 trading sessions. Year-to-date, foreigners have been net sellers of $82 million, a significant number in a span of two months, he mentioned.
LUCK below expectation results for 1HFY16 resulted in the stock closing down 4 percent, while investors also offloaded stocks of pharmaceutical companies as they are uncertain about sustainability of recent drug price increase. FEROZ and SEARL dropped 5 percent and ABBOT declined 2 percent, Rizwan said.
During the intraday day trading, market moved in red and green zone. The market opened positive today hitting a high of 31,065 points but soon a downward curve appeared on the index graph when the market started to lose points. The market touched an intraday low of 30,600 points. Trading activity at the ready counter was slightly higher than previous session and overall some 133.3 million shares were traded Monday compared to 109 million on Friday. The market capitalisation fell by Rs 62 billion to Rs 6.472 trillion. Daily trading value decreased to Rs 5.4 billion.
Trading took place in 338 companies, of which 62 closed in green zone, 257 in the red, while share prices of 19 companies remained unchanged. TRG Pak Ltd, NIB Bank Limited, Silk Bank Ltd, National Bank and Dewan Salman were leading scrips with 11.71 million, 11.7 million, 8.6 million, 5.7 million and 5.6 million shares. Bata (Pak) and Philip Morris Pak were the top gainers with Rs 99.89 and Rs 59.03 to close at Rs 3,400.00 and Rs 1,766.00, respectively. Ferozsons (Lab) and Murree Brewery were the top losers with Rs 38.87 and Rs 37.99 to Rs 738.54 and Rs 721.81, respectively.