KARACHI: Pakistan Stock Exchange Tuesday closed on a negative note due to heavy selling by local and foreign investors.

BRIndex100 lost 56.53 points or 1.29 percent to close at 4,309.34 points. BRIndex100 hit intraday high of 4,371.71 and intraday low of 4,303.60 points. Volumes stood at 451.670 million shares.

BRIndex30 decreased by 370.9 points or 1.67 percent to close at 21,787.99 points with a turnover of 306.255 million shares.

The KSE-100 Index declined by 468.64 points or 1.12 percent to close at 41,381.83 points. Daily trading volumes on the ready counter stood at 481.047 million shares as compared to 487.158 million shares traded Monday.

Foreign investors remained net sellers of shares worth $5.955 million. The market capitalization declined by Rs 85 billion to Rs 7.645 trillion. Out of total 407 active scrips, 295 closed in negative and 101 in positive while the value of 11 stocks remained unchanged.

Unity Foods was the volume leader with 77.190 million shares and increased by Rs 1.04 to close at Rs 22.71 followed by Power Cement that lost Rs 0.09 to close at Rs 10.25 with 33.042 million shares. Unilever Foods and Island Textile were the top gainers increasing by Rs 100.00 and Rs 43.33 respectively to close at Rs 13,900.00 and Rs 1075.00 while Philip Morris Pak and Gatron Industries were the top losers declining by Rs 78.01 and Rs 45.90 respectively to close at Rs 1599.99 and Rs 650.10.

BR Automobile Assembler Index declined by 139.48 points or 1.7 percent to close at 8,059.83 points with total turnover of 3.496 million shares.

BR Cement Index plunged by 130.95 points or 2.06 percent to close at 6,231.18 points with 94.575 million shares.

BR Commercial Banks Index fell by 125 points or 1.46 percent to close at 8,421.78 points with 27.694 million shares.

BR Power Generation and Distribution Index gained 35.34 points or 0.73 percent to close at 4,902.39 points with 16.676 million shares.

BR Oil and Gas Index decreased by 53.43 points or 1.38 percent to close at 3,808.77 points with 27.748 million shares. BR Tech. & Comm. Index closed at 1,847.11 points, down 34.38 points or 1.83 percent with 43.989 million shares.

An analyst at Arif Habib Limited said that the market could only added 72 points earlier in the session, however, post announcement of financial results of PSO, the market discounted the earnings growth and investors resorted to profit booking that brought down the price significantly down from day's high. Similar activity was observed in cement sector that saw recent time highs on Monday and Tuesday.

Besides the deteriorating law and order situation and rise in COVID cases, investors took cue from overnight decline in international stock and commodity markets, which saw an average attrition of 2.5 percent. Regional markets followed suit that led investors to resort to profit booking.

Sectors contributing to the performance include Banks (down 139 points), Cement (down 90 points), E&P (down 63 points), O&GMCs (down 29 points) and Fertilizer (down 26 points).

Stocks that contributed positively to the index include HUBC (up 28 points), MCB (up 15 points), UNITY (up 12 points), SEARL (up 11 points) and FFBL (up 7 points). Stocks that contributed negatively include HBL (down 60 points), BAHL (down 46 points), PSO (down 33 points), TRG (down 28 points) and OGDC (down 22 points).

Copyright Business Recorder, 2020