KARACHI: Pakistan Stock Exchange Thursday witnessed healthy trading activity and remained in positive zone most of the day, however closed on a negative note as investors opted to book profit at the fag end. BRIndex100 lost 8.34 points or 0.2 percent to close at 4,148.57 points. BRIndex100 hit intraday high of 4,209.00 and intraday low of 4,143.02 points. Volumes stood at 279.883 million shares.

BRIndex30 decreased by 106.01 points or 0.5 percent to close at 20,979.63 points with a turnover of 191.051 million shares.

The KSE-100 Index closed at 40,068.50 points, down 75.79 points or 0.19 percent. Trading activity improved as daily volumes on the ready counter increased to 324.790 million shares as compared to 232.803 million shares traded Wednesday.

Foreign investors remained net buyers of shares worth $1.317 million. Total market capitalization declined by Rs 5 billion to Rs 7.488 trillion. Out of total 434 active scrips, 216 closed in negative and 199 in positive while the value of 19 stocks remained unchanged.

Hascol Petroleum was the volume leader with 30.635 million shares however lost Rs 0.25 to close at Rs 15.52 followed by Pak Int. Bulk Terminal that gained Rs 0.29 to close at Rs 12.12 with 17.696 million shares. Nestle Pakistan and Island Textile were the top gainers increasing by Rs 200.00 and Rs 71.97 respectively to close at Rs 6600.00 and Rs 1031.67 while Rafhan Maize and Pak Tobacco were the top losers declining by Rs 300.00 and Rs 40.00 respectively to close at Rs 8050.00 and Rs 1600.00.

BR Automobile Assembler Index decreased by 54.12 points or 0.72 percent to close at 7,487.08 points with total turnover of 4.819 million shares.

BR Cement Index lost 30.52 points or 0.53 percent to close at 5,687.48 points with 37.349 million shares.

BR Commercial Banks Index fell by 23.02 points or 0.28 percent to close at 8,237.25 points with 10.982 million shares.

BR Power Generation and Distribution Index gained 6.27 points or 0.13 percent to close at 4,726.22 points with 18.758 million shares.

BR Oil and Gas Index closed at 3,836.51 points, down 14.62 points or 0.38 percent with 37.906 million shares.

BR Tech. & Comm. Index declined by 17.29 points or 1.01 percent to close at 1,693.34 points with 22.983 million shares.

An analyst at Arif Habib Limited said that the market opened on a positive note with plus 89 points and added a total of 389 points during the session. Concerns over political uncertainty, especially alliance of opposition parties for demonstration and protest scheduled against the government for Friday, brought the index down by 76 points by the end of session.

E&P and Chemical sector posted gains in today's session on the back of an increase in prices of international crude prices as well as expectation of positive delta in Chemical products of listed Chemical companies. Besides OGDC and PPL, Chemical sector scrips EPCL, SPL, DOL traded at and near upper circuits.

Sectors contributing to the performance include Fertilizer (up 28 points), Chemical (up 23 points), Food (up 14 points), Cement (down 28 points), Banks (down 24 points) and Textile (down 15 points).

Stocks that contributed positively to the index include EPCL (up 24 points), BAFL (up 17 points), NESTLE (up 11 points), FFBL (up 10 points) and FATIMA (up 9 points). Stocks that contributed negatively include HBL (down 35 points), TRG (down 17 points), MCB (down 14 points), KTML (down 13 points) and LUCK (down 12 points).

Copyright Business Recorder, 2020