KARACHI: Investor sentiments at Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) remained negative and the market witnessed another bearish session on the last trading day of the week due to monetary tightening and inflationary concerns.

The market, on Friday, opened in the negative zone and remained under pressure throughout the day as investors opted for profit selling over uncertain economic scenarios. The benchmark KSE-100 Index went down by 2.2 percent or 923 points and closed at 41,314.88 points compared to 42,237.91 points Thursday.

The KSE-100 Index also hit 42,311.05 points intraday high and 41,145.35 points intraday low. Due to selling pressure, daily volumes on the ready counter increased by 43.6 percent from 157 million shares to 225.4 million shares. Major contribution to the index came from MTL, HBL, FFC, LUCK and HBL as they lost value to weigh down on the index by -249 points.

BRIndex100 declined by 109.8 points or 2.63 percent to close at 4,070.37 compared to 4,180.17 points a day earlier. Total volume at BRIndex100 stood at 206.955 million and K-Electric Ltd was the most traded company with a volume of 30 million.

BRIndex30 also lost 577.17 points to close at 14,536.50 points down from 15,113.67 points. Total volume at BRIndex30 was 142 million.

Analysts said that selling in market can be attributed to investors’ concern on inflation following further increase in petroleum product prices by Rs30 liter and NEPRA’s proposal of increase in prices of electricity by Rs8/unit from July 1, 2022. Decline in foreign exchange reserves held by SBP by $377 million to single digit number of $9.7 billion, also weighed down on investor sentiment.

The market capitalization declined by Rs 111 billion to Rs 6.931 trillion on Friday from Rs 7.042 trillion on Thursday. Out of total 335 active scrips, 262 closed in negative and only 61 in positive while the value of 12 stocks remained unchanged.

K-Electric Ltd was the volume leader with 30 million shares and closed at Rs 2.47 followed by Pak Refinery that closed at Rs 17.37 with 21.7 million shares. Cnergyico PK ranked third with 2.2 million shares and closed at Rs 5.16.

Mehmood Tex and Sapphire Tex were the top gainers increasing by Rs 63.00 and Rs 69.0 respectively to close at Rs 933.00 and Rs 1,189.50 while Rafhan Maize and Unilever Foods were the top losers declining by Rs 75.00 and Rs 100.00 respectively to close at Rs 9,955.00 and Rs 24,900.

BR Automobile Assembler Index Closed at 9,784.48 with a net negative change of -246.35 points or a percentage change of -2.46 and a total turnover of 690,538.

BR Cement Index Closed at 3,951.93 with a net negative change of -169.15 points or a percentage change of -4.1 and a total turnover of 16,905,756.

BR Commercial Banks Index Closed at 9,173.56 with a net negative change of -169.78 points or a percentage change of -1.82 and a total turnover of 16,515,726.

BR Power Generation and Distribution Index closed at 5,155.99 with a net negative change of -113.11 points or a percentage change of -2.15 and a turnover of 36,962,998.

BR Oil and Gas Index closed at 3,582.09 with a net negative change of -64.44 points or a percentage change of -1.77 and a total turnover of 9,063,695.

BR Tech. & Comm. Index closed at 3,218.03 with a net negative change of -98.15 points or a percentage change of -2.96 and a total turnover of 19,513,653.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2022