The Pakistan Stock Exchange endured a tumultuous session on Thursday and the KSE-100 offloaded 0.38% as investors weighed sentiment on delay in International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) review of Pakistan’s economy.

This motivated the market participants to sell off their holdings, dragging the KSE-100 lower.

KSE-100 stages turnaround, rises 0.44%

By the end of the day, the KSE-100 Index was down 164.03 points or 0.38% to close at 42,819.72.

Trading began with a jump and but selling pressure emerged in early hours and levelled the index. The market remained range-bound for most part of the session however, the index slid in final hour to close on a negative note.

Index-heavy automobile, banking and oil segments ended day with losses while cement sector closed mixed.

A report from Arif Habib Limited stated that another range-bound session was witnessed at the PSX.

“The market opened in the positive zone however, due to the rupee-dollar parity and delayed review of the IMF programme snapped investors’ confidence resulting in the index losing 214.38 points at the intra-day low and closing in the red,” it said. “Investor participation remained slow while 3rd tier scrips generated the most volumes.”

A report from Capital Stake stated that investors at PSX witnessed grim trading session on Thursday.

“Indices oscillated in both directions till finally closing in red, while volumes dropped from last close,” the report said.

On economic front, the large scale manufacturing sector expanded 0.01% in September 2022 when compared with September 2021 and 0.1% when compared with August 2022.

Rupee depreciated Rs0.26 or 0.12% against the US Dollar basis ending the session at Rs222.67.

Sectors painting the benchmark KSE-100 index in red included food and personal care products (31.35 points), technology and communication (29.23 points) and oil and gas marketing (27.07 points).

Volume on the all-share index declined to 181.2 million from 186.7 million on Wednesday. The value of shares traded fell to Rs6.2 billion from Rs6.7 billion recorded in the previous session.

BankIslami was the volume leader with 17.1 million shares, followed by Unity Foods with 11.6 million shares and Telecard Limited with 11.5 million shares

Shares of 346 companies were traded on Thursday, of which 103 registered an increase, 221 recorded a fall, and 22 remained unchanged.