KARACHI: After positive opening, the Pakistan Stock Exchange witnessed selling pressure which forced the index to close in red zone with low volumes.

The benchmark KSE-100 Index declined by 328.03 points or 0.75 percent and closed at 43,518.84 points.

Trading activity remained low as daily volumes on ready counter decreased to 200.494 million shares as compared to 233.176 million shares traded on Wednesday.

BRIndex100 decreased by 45.34 points or 1.01 percent to close at 4,440.09 points with a turnover of 166.571 million shares.

BRIndex30 plunged by 332.84 points or 1.87 percent to close at 17,462.83 points with total daily trading volumes of 108.095 million shares.

Foreign investors also remained net sellers of shares worth $913,082. Total market capitalization declined by Rs 45 billion to Rs 7.459 trillion. Out of total 332 active scrips, 237 closed in negative and only 72 in positive while the value of 23 stocks remained unchanged.

TRG Pak was the volume leader with 25.728 million shares and increased by Rs 1.34 to close at Rs 95.05 followed by Telecard Limited that closed at Rs 14.81, down Rs 0.76 with 13.277 million shares.

Sapphire Textile and Nestle Pakistan were the top gainers increasing by Rs 67.00 and Rs 50.00 respectively to close at Rs 992.00 and Rs 5300.00 while Colgate Palmolive and Hinopak Motor were the top losers declining by Rs 20.00 and Rs 19.49 respectively to close at Rs 2430.00 and Rs 320.51.

Muhammad Mubashir at JS Global Capital said that profit-taking continued across the board as the benchmark index closed at 43,519, a day-on-day decline of 328 points.

The market opened in the green zone and touched an intraday high of 43,997 points but was then unable to maintain the momentum. Traded volumes stood at 201 million shares with TRG (up 1.4 percent), TELE (down 4.9 percent), HASCOL (down 5.5 percent), PPL (up 4.2 percent) and WTL (down 2.9 percent) being the highest contributors.

BR Automobile Assembler Index decreased by 91.35 points or 1.08 percent to close at 8,352.16 points with total turnover of 1.638 million shares.

BR Cement Index plunged by 167.46 points or 3.09 percent to close at 5,260.42 points with 12.687 million shares.

BR Commercial Banks Index declined by 109.18 points or 1.09 percent to close at 9,905.99 points with 10.921 million shares.

BR Power Generation and Distribution Index lost 28.56 points or 0.52 percent to close at 5,420.64 points with 5.186 million shares.

BR Oil and Gas Index fell by 35.05 points or 0.93 percent to close at 3,791.97 points with 33.324 million shares.

BR Tech. & Comm. Index closed at 3,827.37 points, down 28.42 points or 0.74 percent with 58.327 million shares.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2021