KARACHI: Pakistan Stock Exchange Thursday closed on a negative note due to selling in various sectors as investors opted to book profits on available margins.
The benchmark KSE-100 Index hit 42,678.27 points intraday high and 42,214.63 points intraday low before closing at 42,243.33 points, down 251.52 points or 0.59 percent.
Trading activity also remained low as total daily volumes on ready counter decreased to 281.734 million shares as compared to 373.184 million shares traded on Wednesday while total daily traded value on ready counter declined to Rs 7.795 billion against previous day’s Rs 13.231 billion.
BRIndex100 decreased by 31.54 points or 0.74 percent to close at 4,208.97 points with total daily turnover of 266.742 million shares.
BRIndex30 declined by 156.58 points or 1.0 percent to close at 15,436.12 points with total daily trading volumes of 189.212 million shares.
Foreign investors however remained on buying side and bought equities worth $550,506. Total market capitalization declined by Rs 6 billion to Rs 7.083 trillion. Out of total 343 active scrips, 193 closed in negative and 130 in positive while the value of 20 stocks remained unchanged.
Unity Foods was the volume leader with 19.675 million shares and gained Rs 0.32 to close at Rs 20.43 followed by K-Electric that inched up by Rs 0.04 to close at Rs 3.10 with 19.236 million shares. WorldCall Telecom closed at Rs 1.30, down Rs 0.03 with 18.374 million shares.
Unilever Foods and Nestle Pakistan were the top gainers increasing by Rs 500.00 and Rs 45.00 respectively to close at Rs 25,000.00 and Rs 6,100.00 while Gatron Industries and Indus Motor Co were the top losers declining by Rs 26.40 and Rs 16.18 respectively to close at Rs 361.10 and Rs 1,054.02.
An analyst at Arif Habib Limited said that a rangebound session was observed at PSX. The benchmark KSE-100 Index opened in the positive zone but sluggish activity was witnessed as investors opted for profit taking in the last trading hour which led the index to close in the red zone. Volumes remained decent in the main board although hefty volumes were witnessed in the 3rd tier stocks.
Sectors contributing to the performance include Banks (down 81.1 points), Fertilizer (down 47.3 points), Technology (down 43.1 points), Cement (down 20.9 points) and E&P (down 20.8 points).
BR Automobile Assembler Index gained 2.5 points or 0.03 percent to close at 9,577.88 points with total turnover of 1.556 million shares.
BR Cement Index decreased by 34.02 points or 0.8 percent to close at 4,214.60 points with 11.769 million shares.
BR Commercial Banks Index declined by 80.26 points or 0.9 percent to close at 8,858.00 points with 10.537 million shares.
BR Power Generation and Distribution Index inched up by 3.14 points or 0.05 percent to close at 5,728.64 points with 27.762 million shares.
BR Oil and Gas Index lost 12.96 points or 0.33 percent to close at 3,960.26 points with 12.186 million shares.
BR Tech. & Comm. Index closed at 3,646.56 points, down 56.36 points or 1.52 percent with 33.828 million shares.
Mubashir Anis Naviwala at JS Global Capital said that the KSE-100 Index witnessed a volatile session but eventually closed at 42,243, losing 252 points.
Profit-taking was witnessed across-the-board. Major contributors to the traded volume of 282 million shares were UNITY (up 1.6 percent), KEL (up 1.3 percent), WTL (down 2.3 percent), CNERGY (down 1.5 percent) and GGL (up 2.2 percent).
Copyright Business Recorder, 2022