KARACHI: Pakistan Stock Exchange witnessed bearish trend on Thursday due to selling by both local and foreign investors.

BRIndex100 lost 34.06 points or 0.98 percent to close at 3,446.40 points. During the session, the BRIndex-100 hit an intraday high of 3,480.46 and an intraday low of 3,443.79 points. Total volumes stood at 124.516 million shares.

BRIndex30 decreased by 230.01 points or 1.3 percent to close at 17,398.29 points with total daily turnover of 86.190 million shares.

KSE-100 Index plunged by 325.02 points or 0.95 percent and closed at 33,709.63 points. Trading activities also remained low as daily volumes on ready counter decreased to 168.429 million shares as compared to 195.734 million shares traded on Wednesday.

The foreign investors remained net sellers of shares worth $2.159 million. Total market capitalization declined by Rs 58 billion to Rs 6.400 trillion. Out of total 355 active scrips, 229 closed in negative and 100 in positive while the value of 26 stocks remained unchanged.

WorldCall Telecom was the volume leader with 19.554 million shares and gained Re 0.07 to close at Re 0.87 followed by Hum Network that increased by Rs 1.08 to close at Rs 15.77 with 13.413 million shares. Sapphire Textile and Indus Dyeing were the top gainers increasing by Rs 49.27 and Rs 42.01 respectively to close at Rs 706.27 and Rs 627.00 while Nestle Pakistan and Rafhan Maize were the top losers declining by Rs 350.00 and Rs 90.00 respectively to close at Rs 6500.00 and Rs 7000.00.

BR Automobile Assembler Index lost 7.43 points or 0.13 percent to close at 5,587.14 points with total turnover of 6.171 million shares.

BR Cement Index decreased by 23.43 points or 0.58 percent to close at 4,038.84 points with 15.017 million shares.

BR Commercial Banks Index declined by 51.17 points or 0.75 percent to close at 6,734.81 points with 8.501 million shares.

BR Power Generation and Distribution Index plunged by 74.09 points or 1.75 percent to close at 4,163.21 points with 9.947 million shares.

BR Oil and Gas Index closed at 3,556.10 points, down 62.82 points or 1.74 percent with 10.790 million shares.

BR Tech. & Comm. Index gained 19.81 points or 1.49 percent to close at 1,346.59 points with 51.719 million shares.

An analyst at Arif Habib Limited said that the market followed the downtrend witnesses in global stock markets, especially taking negative effect of international crude prices that shed $3/bbl overnight.

E&P, O&GMCs and Refinery sectors sustained price loss. Cement sector stocks showed some price performance on the back of anticipated increase in cement dispatches in the ongoing month. Overall, selling activity was observed across the board.

Post session, the SBP announced further rate cut of 100bps to 7.0 percent, which does give an explanation for a more than usual negativity in the banking scrips, particularly in HBL, MCB and BAFL. As have been the practice during the past few sessions, institutional investors are seem more interested in moderate closure to FY20 and therefore execute trades of marked-to-market nature than even driven trades.

Technology stocks again led the volumes with 51.7 million shares, followed by Cement (15 million shares) and Refinery (11.4 million shares).

Sectors contributing to the performance include E&P (down 86 points), Banks (down 55 points), Power (down 39 points), Food (down 39 points) and Fertilizer (down 30 points).

Stocks that contributed positively to the index include DAWH (up 12 points), EFERT (up 9 points), COLG (up 5 points), ABOT (up 3 points) and SRVI (up 3 points). Stocks that contributed negatively include HUBC (down 37 points), NESTLE (down 35 points), OGDC (down 34 points), MCB (down 30 points) and PPL (down 27 points).

Copyright Business Recorder, 2020