KARACHI: Pakistan Stock Exchange Wednesday witnessed a rangebound session as investors opted to offload their holdings due to expected interest rate hike in upcoming monetary policy as KIBOR reached 13-year high level.
The market opened on slight positive note, however failed to sustain this level due to selling in most sectors. On the contrary, rally in refinery sector was witnessed due to rumors regarding the approval of refinery policy.
The benchmark KSE-100 Index hit 45,956.62 points intraday high and 45,483.99 points intraday low level before closing at 45,533.30 points, down 284.38 points or 0.62 percent.
Trading activities slightly improved as total daily volumes on ready counter increased to 223.822 million shares as compared to 210.202 million shares traded on Tuesday however, total daily traded value on ready counter declined to Rs 5.583 billion against previous day’s Rs 6.226 billion.
BRIndex100 lost 40.48 points or 0.87 percent to close at 4,593.23 points with total daily turnover of 211.261 million shares.
BRIndex30 decreased by 87.17 points or 0.52 percent to close at 16,768.30 points with total daily trading volumes of 160.365 million shares.
Foreign investors also remained net sellers of shares worth $64,168. The market capitalization declined by Rs 56 billion to Rs 7.575 trillion. Out of total 331 active scrips, 186 closed in negative and 116 in positive while the value of 29 stocks remained unchanged.
Cnergyico PK was the volume leader with 63.683 million shares and gained Rs 0.56 to close at Rs 6.79 followed by Pak Refinery that closed at Rs 17.17, up Rs 0.98 with 26.165 million shares. G3 Technologies lost Rs 0.03 to close at Rs 11.69 with 11.275 million shares.
Bhanero Textile and Sapphire Textile were the top gainers increasing by Rs 67.89 and Rs 45.15 respectively to close at Rs 1537.89 and Rs 1185.00 while Nestle Pakistan and Shield Corp were the top losers declining by Rs 49.98 and Rs 16.84 respectively to close at Rs 5800.01 and Rs 266.50.
An analyst at Arif Habib Limited said that PSX observed a range bound secession. The KSE-100 Index remained volatile throughout the day due to expectation of rate hike in upcoming policy as KIBOR reached 13years high. On the contrary, rally in the refinery sector was witnessed due to rumors regarding the approval of refinery policy.
The last trading hour witnessed profit selling across the board which resulted in the secession ending in the red zone. Main board activity remained dull although hefty volumes were witnessed in the 3rd tier stocks.
Sectors contributing to the performance include Fertilizer (down 106.8 points), Technology (down 61.7 points), Cement (down 39.5 points), and Chemicals (down 34.8 points).
BR Automobile Assembler Index plunged by 112.95 points or 1.17 percent to close at 9,520.37 points with total turnover of 938,325 shares.
BR Cement Index declined by 52.08 points or 1.02 percent to close at 5,039.32 points with 7.377 million shares.
BR Commercial Banks Index lost 4.41 points or 0.04 percent to close at 10,098.45 points with 7.991 million shares.
BR Power Generation and Distribution Index decreased by 66.43 points or 1.15 percent to close at 5,702.92 points with 6.314 million shares.
BR Oil and Gas Index fell by 6.1 points or 0.16 percent to close at 3,834.70 points with 5.966 million shares.
BR Tech. & Comm. Index closed at 3,724.89 points, down 79.39 points or 2.09 percent with 30.156 million shares.
Neelam Naz at JS Global Capital said that correction continued as market closed at 45,533, down 284 points. Total traded volume stood at 224 million shares where CNERGY (up 9.0 percent), PRL (up 6.1 percent), GTECH (down 0.3 percent), PAEL (up 0.2 percent) and TELE (down 3.0 percent) were volume leaders.
Investors booked gains in FFC after its result announcement where it declared a dividend of Rs 3.7/share and earning of Rs 4.9/share for the quarter. Major index draggers were FFC, EFERT, ENGRO, EPCL and UBL.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2022