KARACHI: Despite foreign buying, Pakistan Stock Exchange Wednesday witnessed a bearish trend due to selling, mainly by local investors.

BRIndex100 lost 30.76 points or 0.59 percent to close at 5,181.88 points. BRIndex100 hit intraday high of 5,224.50 points and intraday low of 5,179.97 points. Volumes stood at 318.525 million shares.

BRIndex30 decreased by 299.13 points or 1.16 percent to close at 25,565.01 points with a turnover of 203.936 million shares. The KSE-100 Index declined by 192.81 points or 0.40 percent and closed at 47,635.90 points. Daily trading volumes on ready counter decreased to 384.627 million shares as compared to 394.953 million shares traded Tuesday.

Foreign investors however remained net buyers of shares worth $1.666 million. The market capitalization declined by Rs 17 billion to Rs 8.342 trillion. Out of total 479 active scrips, 282 closed in negative and 177 in positive while the value of 20 stocks remained unchanged. WorldCall Telecom was the volume leader with 38.045 million shares and closed at Rs 3.3, up Rs 0.01 followed by Azgard Nine that gained Rs 0.45 to close at Rs 28.17 with 33.387 million shares. Wyeth Pak and Allawasaya Textile were the top gainers increasing by Rs 82.24 and Rs 39.49 respectively to close at Rs 1781.29 and Rs 566.11 while Pak Services and Sapphire Fiber were the top losers declining by Rs 70.00 and Rs 59.01 respectively to close at Rs 1005.00 and Rs 806.00.

BR Automobile Assembler Index gained 23.11 points or 0.23 percent to close at 9,948.98 points with total turnover of 2.227 million shares.

BR Cement Index declined by 10.363 points or 1.43 percent to close at 7,127.51 points with 22.024 million shares.

BR Commercial Banks Index lost 8.89 points or 0.09 percent to close at 9,619.50 points with 18.614 million shares.

BR Power Generation and Distribution Index decreased by 41.32 points or 0.74 percent to close at 5,541.06 points with 10.198 million shares.

BR Oil and Gas Index fell by 22.93 points or 0.58 percent to close at 3,950.95 points with 11.147 million shares.

BR Tech. & Comm. Index closed at 4,637.70 points, down 45.7 points or 0.98 percent with 72.343 million shares.

Ahsan Mehanti at Arif Habib Corporation said that stocks closed lower amid pressure in the futures rollover weeks and concerns for slump in the rupee likely to impact inflation.

He said foreign outflows, regional uncertainty and concerns for PSX likely downgrade to MSCI frontier status played catalyst role in bearish close.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2021