KARACHI: Pakistan Stock Exchange Thursday remained under pressure and closed on a negative note due to selling in various sectors.

BRIndex100 lost 36.29 points or 0.75 percent to close at 4,821.13 points. BRIndex-100 hit intraday high of 4,889.23 and an intraday low of 4,815.68 points. Volumes stood at 299.464 million shares.

BRIndex30 declined by 445.17 points or 1.74 percent to close at 25,088.03 points with a turnover of 169.114 million shares.

The KSE-100 Index plunged by 376.93 points or 0.83 percent and closed at 44,929.61 points. Trading activities remained low as daily volumes on ready counter decreased to 328.935 million shares as compared to 387.908 million shares traded Wednesday.

Foreign investors also remained net sellers of shares worth $541,134. Total market capitalization declined by Rs 65 billion to Rs 7.834 trillion. Out of total 390 active scrips, 276 closed in negative and only 92 in positive while the value of 22 stocks remained unchanged.

Ghani Glo. Hol was the volume leader with 36.375 million shares and increased by Rs 2.32 to close at Rs 33.37 followed by TRG Pak that declined by Rs 1.59 to close at Rs 171.63 with 30.209 million shares. Sapphire Textile and AKD Capital were the top gainers increasing by Rs 55.16 and Rs 29.27 respectively to close at Rs 969.99 and Rs 480.77 while Bata Pak and Pak Suzuki were the top losers declining by Rs 99.99 and Rs 25.39 respectively to close at Rs 1800.00 and Rs 313.17.

BR Automobile Assembler Index plunged by 199.32 points or 2.21 percent to close at 8,821.26 points with total turnover of 2.414 million shares.

BR Cement Index declined by 105.47 points or 1.47 percent to close at 7,051.25 points with 14.328 million shares.

BR Commercial Banks Index gained 74.8 points or 0.86 percent to close at 8,754.53 points with 26.446 million shares.

BR Power Generation and Distribution Index decreased by 64.52 points or 1.18 percent to close at 5,394.89 points with 9.297 million shares.

BR Oil and Gas Index lost 68.35 points or 1.74 percent to close at 3,854.55 points with 9.057 million shares.

BR Tech. & Comm. Index closed at 3,976.05 points, down 64.95 points or 1.61 percent with 84.758 million shares.

An analyst at Arif Habib Limited said that concern over growing cases of corona and incidence in major cities thereof kept the investors perturbed the second day as well, where despite healthy earnings posted by companies announced, the index eventually went down by 424 points during the session and at the close, the index registered a decline of 377 points.

E&P, Cement, Steel scrips contributed the most to the decline, whereas banking sector stocks saw pick up. Notable scrips declaring results includes ENGRO and UBL, which made the announcement at the beginning of the session that included dividend declaration, however, selling pressure brought the stock prices down by the end of session.

Sectors contributing to the performance include E&P (down 94 points), Cement (down 79 points), Textile (down 55 points), Technology (down 45 points) and Autos (down 34 points).

Stocks that contributed positively to the index include UBL (up 56 points), HBL (up 45 points), ENGRO (up 27 points), BAFL (up 11 points) and BAHL (up 8 points). Stocks that contributed negatively include OGDC (down 40 points), MCB (down 29 points), PPL (down 26 points), SYS (down 25 points) and LUCK (down 20 points).

Copyright Business Recorder, 2021