Led by petroleum sector shares, equities further eroded values for the third consecutive day on Lahore Stock Exchange (LSE) on account of lacking interest on the part of investors who remained on the sidelines.
The LSE-25 index shed another 65.99 points and closed 3479.77 against 3545.76 of Tuesday, while trading volume restricted to 30.246 million shares as against 37.184 million shares yesterday. Only three companies ie Engro Chemical, Japan Power and KESC could be able to finish in positive column, while PSO, PPL, Askari Commercial Bank, Adamjee Insurance, MCB, ICI Pak, National Bank, OGDC and Bank of Punjab remained under pressure and closed in negative column.
The market opened on a healthy note but could not sustain due to selling pressure. After staying in positive zone for less than half an hour, the market started declining which continued till the mid day. A little recovery was seen during last trading hour.
It was the PPL, which is disturbing market sentiments for the third day. As a result of continuous and sharp decline, PPL had to face downward cap throughout the day. However, ICI, Askrai Commercial Bank, and MCB were uncapped just ahead of market closure, said Mirza Irfan Baig of Capital Vision Securities while commenting on the market trend.
Javed Omar Vohra is learnt to have sold its membership, which generated selling pressure. All the potential brokers kept on selling their holdings to secure their positions that caused panic among the small investors. Askari Commercial Bank, despite good results for the second quarter, could not resist the negative trend and lost its worth by Rs 4.55, he added.
Moreover, there was news that PPL's oil exploration failed to produce positive results, which forced the investors to offload their holdings, he said. He was of the view that market is oversold and can witness technical correction within a day or so.
However, the investors must be conscious while taking positions and only long-term investment in low priced shares could yield good margin to them on long-term basis, he added.
Declining stocks were far ahead of advancing ones, as out of a total of 77 scrips, only two companies showed appreciation in its worth, 41 booked losses, while 34 subdued to its previous levels.
Engro Chemical gained Rs 2.00 and Japan Power moved up by Rs 0.60. On the contrary, PSO lost Rs 10.30, PPL declined by Rs 9.90, while Askari Commercial Bank and Adamjee Insurance were down by Rs 4.35 and Rs 4.00, respectively.
With transaction of 10.434 million shares, PTCL topped the volume leaders, while OGDC stood as runner up with total trading of 4.939 million shares.