Stocks extend losses

Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) Tuesday witnessed a heavy selling pressure and the benchmark KSE-100 index hit 48,108.80 points intra-day low, down 780 points. However, the index recovered in later hours on the back of fresh buying in select stocks and hit 49003.94 points intra-day high.
The index closed at 48,678.65 points with a net loss of 209.89 points.Both the local and foreign investors opted to offload their holdings. Foreign investors sold shares worth $9.1 million and withdrew their holdings from the bourse.
Daily trading volumes on the ready counter increased to 379.653 million shares as compared to 316.062 million shares traded Monday. The market capitalisation decreased by Rs 38 billion to stand at Rs 9.767 trillion. Out of total 415 active scrips, 272 closed in negative, 130 in positive while the value of 13 stocks remained unchanged.
Sui Southern Gas Company was the volume leader with 22.577 million shares. It gained Rs 0.53 to close at Rs 39.17 followed by Faysal Bank that increased by Rs 1.23 to close at Rs 25.84 with 21.292 million shares. Aisha Steel Mills surged by Rs 0.43 to close at Rs 18.42 with 15.732 million shares.
Unilever Foods and Rafhan Maize were the top gainers with Rs 150.00 and Rs 140.00, respectively to close at Rs 5,900.00 and Rs 7,950.00. Service Industries and Lucky Cement were the top losers with Rs 37.02 and Rs 28.52, respectively to close at Rs 1,540.25 and Rs 853.71.
Nabeel Haroon at JS Global Capital said that the market opened on a shaky note, which was followed by heavy selling as the index lost to make an intraday low of -780 points. The market however recovered during the latter hours as the index closed 210 points lower than its previous day close at 48,679 points level. MLCF increased by 2.57 percent on the back of material information disseminated in the market that the cement manufacturer has signed a contract for procurement of equipment and engineering of a dry production clinker line of 7,300tpd. FFBL gained on the back of the news that its subsidiary Fauji Meat Limited has started its commercial operation as of Monday. An abattoir and meat processing facility has been established with a daily production capacity of 100 tons of meat (85 tons of beef and 15 tons of mutton) in frozen and chilled categories for world-wide export by the company with a total cost of around $75 million.
Zeeshan Afzal at Insight Securities said that PSX witnessed huge volatility on news that Prime Minister has asked for immunity from the Supreme Court thus resulting in index losing by around 780 points. Later, equities recovered as ruling party denied the statement.