KARACHI: Bearish trend continued at Pakistan Stock Exchange on Friday due to selling by both local and foreign investors.

BRIndex100 lost 27.03 points or 0.65 percent to close at 4,131.24 points. During the session, the BRIndex-100 hit an intraday high of 4,158.85 and an intraday low of 4,083.73 points. Total volumes stood at 335.444 million shares.

BRIndex30 decreased by 288.73 points or 1.34 percent to close at 21,232.21 points with total daily turnover of 197.778 million shares.

KSE-100 index declined by 246.96 points or 0.62 percent and closed at 39,621.59 points. Daily trading volumes stood at 400.478 million shares as compared to 394.620 million shares traded on Thursday.

The foreign investors remained on the selling side and withdrew $223,481 from the Pakistan capital market. Total market capitalization declined by Rs 57 billion to Rs 7.361 trillion. Out of total 390 active scrips, 237 closed in negative and 135 in positive while the value of 18 stocks remained unchanged.

WorldCall Telecom was the volume leader with 23.982 million shares however lost Rs 0.06 to close at Rs 1.21 followed by Azgard Nine that gained Rs 0.21 to close at Rs 17.24 with 21.788 million shares. Island Textile and Sapphire Fiber were the top gainers increasing by Rs 69.19 and Rs 54.99 respectively to close at Rs 991.99 and Rs 805.00 while Unilever Foods and Nestle Pakistan were the top losers declining by Rs 199.98 and Rs 59.99 respectively to close at Rs 9500.02 and Rs 6150.01.

BR Automobile Assembler Index gained 15.9 points or 0.2 percent to close at 7,885.14 points with total turnover of 5.670 million shares.

BR Cement Index lost 38.38 points or 0.7 percent to close at 5,438.55 points with 59.665 million shares.

BR Commercial Banks Index inched up by 2.79 points or 0.03 percent to close at 8,105.31 points with 18.691 million shares.

BR Power Generation and Distribution Index decreased by 79.03 points or 1.58 percent to close at 4,912.57 points with 31.862 million shares. BR Oil and Gas Index declined by 67.2 points or 1.62 percent to close at 4,091.54 points with 36.001 million shares.

BR Tech & Comm Index closed at 1,597.95 points, down 24.79 points or 1.53 percent with 74.711 million shares. Ahsan Mehanti at Arif Habib Corporation said that the bearish trend continued on pressure in scrips across the board on economic uncertainty amid S&P forecast over surging fiscal deficit at 8.5 percent, Debt/GDP at 91.4 percent for FY21. He said weak global crude oil prices, geo political uncertainty and weak rupee played a catalyst role for bearish close.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2020