Lahore stocks remained under the grip of bearish sentiment on Tuesday and registered losses amid descending transaction volume on account of profit taking and portfolio sale despite another positive development with regarding to restoration of Mian Shahbaz Sharif government in the Punjab province.
The LSE-25 index slid down by 58.55 points and ended at 2085.16 against 2143.71 of Monday while trading turnover squeezed to 32.854 million shares as compared to 35.673 million shares traded a day earlier.
Engro Chemical, Adamjee Insurance, and Pakistan Reinsurance resisted selling pressure while most of the blue chips including PPL, PSO, Attock Refinery, MCB Bank, Habib Bank, National Bank, United Bank, Allied Bank remained under selling pressure and closed in the negative zone. Similarly, profit taking was also seen in D G Khan Cement, OGDCL, NIB Bank, Maple Leaf Cement and Arif Habib Securities.
The market opened on a healthy note at 2,143 but could not sustain and started melting. The market stayed in the red zone till for the first 30-mintue of trading and then started improving following fresh buying. According to the analysts, the investors were expecting another bullish rally following restoration of Mian Shahbaz Sharif government by the Supreme Court. Despite this positive development, the investors did not make fresh entries because of profit taking as the potential investors started offloading their holdings to pocket the available margin.
Besides, the portfolio sale also sparked selling pressure and led the potential investors to get out of the market, they said and added that the healthy sentiments would continue to provide support to the market in coming days.
According to them, the reconciliation among the political stakeholders is being strengthened gradually and things have started to be normalise which is in the best interest of the countrys economy in general and stocks business in particular.
The declining stocks were ahead of advancing ones as out of a total of 121 companies, 20 resisted selling pressure, 52 went down and closed with losses while 49 companies stayed glued to their previous levels. Al-Ghazi Tractors improved Rs 4.21, Engro Chemical gained Rs 3.86 while ICI Pak and Adamjee Insurance were up by Rs 2.85 and Rs 2.72 respectively.
In the minus column, PPL lost Rs 12.57, MCB Bank declined by Rs 6.23, PSO shed Rs 6.14, Attock Refinery depreciated by Rs 4.45 while Habib Bank and National Bank were also down by Rs 4.24 and Rs 3.38 respectively. D G Khan Cement with total trading of 2.812 million shares followed by National Bank with 2.590 million shares.