KARACHI: Pakistan Stock Exchange Tuesday closed on a negative note as investors opted to book profits on available margins.

BRIndex100 lost 42.36 points or 0.96 percent to close at 4,367.10 points. BRIndex100 hit intraday high of 4,433.73 and intraday low of 4,356.88 points. Volumes stood at 791.541 million shares.

BRIndex30 declined by 354.01 points or 1.55 percent to close at 22,533.48 points with a turnover of 493.461 million shares.

The KSE-100 Index plunged by 310.56 points or 0.73 percent and closed at 41,985.19 points. Trading activities however improved significantly as daily volumes on ready counter increased to 884.370 million shares as compared to 748.896 million shares traded on Monday.

The market capitalization declined by Rs 50 billion to Rs 7.859 trillion. Out of total 431 active scrips, 293 closed in negative and 120 in positive while the value of 18 stocks remained unchanged.

Hascol Petroleum was the volume leader with 134.038 million shares however declined by Rs 1.73 to close at Rs 21.42 followed by Pak Int. Bulk Terminal that that lost Rs 0.23 to close at Rs 12.99 with 66.005 million shares. Rafhan Maize and Jubilee Life Ins were the top gainers increasing by Rs 250.00 and Rs 32.18 respectively to close at Rs 8550.00 and Rs 473.58 while Colgate Palmolive and Island Textile were the top losers declining by Rs 145.43 and Rs 65.29 respectively to close at Rs 3454.57 and Rs 962.21.

BR Automobile Assembler Index declined by 65.98 points or 0.83 percent to close at 7,929.34 points with total turnover of 19.197 million shares.

BR Cement Index lost 31.23 points or 0.52 percent to close at 5,956.33 points with 100.402 million shares.

BR Commercial Banks Index plunged by 73.86 points or 0.88 percent to close at 8,362.86 points with 54.733 million shares.

BR Power Generation and Distribution Index decreased by 45.63 points or 0.88 percent to close at 5,118.06 points with 41.117 million shares.

BR Oil and Gas Index fell by 34.87 points or 0.82 percent to close at 4,211.32 points with 154.454 million shares.

BR Tech. & Comm. Index closed at 1,995.57 points, down 14.53 points or 0.72 percent with 85.857 million shares.

An analyst at Arif Habib Limited said that the market saw selling pressure by the end of session after posting gains of 233 points early on. Refinery sector particular performed well with multiple stocks hit upper circuit. Similarly, Cement and OMCs sectors saw buying interest which helped the index post gains. Besides, Chemical sector remained in the limelight, seeing good gains made in stock prices.

Selling pressure brought the index down by 616 points, including erosion of earlier gains, which was caused by closing of leveraged positions by retail investors.

O&GMCs posted trading volume of 149 million shares, followed by Cement (100 million shares) and Refinery (89.3 million shares).

Sectors contributing to the performance include Banks (down 80 points), O&GMCs (down 38 points), Chemical (down 35 points), Pharma (down 24 points) and E&P (down 24 points).

Stocks that contributed positively to the index include SYS (up 35 points), LUCK (up 31 points), NATF (up 19 points), JLICL (up 12 points) and BYCO (up 11 points). Stocks that contributed negatively include TRG (down 33 points), HBL (down 27 points), MCB (down 24 points), HASCOL (down 23 points) and OGDC (down 19 points).

Copyright Business Recorder, 2020