KARACHI: Pakistan Stock Exchange Monday remained under severe pressure due to heavy selling in almost all sectors on investor concerns over prevailing economic and political situation in the country.
The benchmark KSE-100 Index plunged by 330.66 points or 0.80 percent and closed below 41,000 psychological level at 40,970.82 points. The index hit 41,393.37 points intraday high and 40,814.56 points intraday low.
The daily trading volumes on ready counter stood at 142.576 million shares as compared to 139.659 million shares traded on last Friday while total daily traded value on ready counter declined to Rs 3.811 billion against previous session’s Rs 4.167 billion.
BRIndex100 decreased by 44.26 points or 1.08 percent to close at 4,065.62 points with total daily turnover of 116.138 million shares.
BRIndex30 declined by 246.13 points or 1.66 percent to close at 14,601.88 points with total daily trading volumes of 56.181 million shares.
Foreign investors also remained on the selling side and withdrew $4.246 million from the local equity market. The market capitalization declined by Rs 57 billion to Rs 6.507 trillion. Out of total 317 active scrips, 220 closed in negative and only 82 in positive while the value of 15 stocks remained unchanged.
Bank Alfalah was the volume leader with 29.018 million shares however lost Rs 0.07 to close at Rs 30.68 followed by WorldCall Telecom that inched down by Rs 0.04 to close at Rs 1.23 with 12.444 million shares. Hascol Petroleum closed at Rs 6.09, down Rs 0.71 with 9.454 million shares.
Pak Services and Sapphire Fiber were the top gainers increasing by Rs 98.00 and Rs 55.00 respectively to close at Rs 1548.00 and Rs 1270.00 while Rafhan Maize and Nestle Pakistan were the top losers declining by Rs 591.00 and Rs 140.72 respectively to close at Rs 8165.00 and Rs 5340.28.
An analyst at Arif Habib Limited said that the week started on a negative note at the PSX due to the ongoing political uncertainty, which kept investors squaring up their position in the market, with the index shedding 486.53 points during the intraday. Decent volumes were observed on the main-board although third-tier stocks remained in the spotlight.
Sectors contributing to the performance include Power Generation & Distribution (down 53.5 points), Fertilizer (down 51.5 points), Technology & Communication (down 51.5 points), E&P’s (down 47.1 points) and Automobile Assembler (down 33.7 points).
BR Automobile Assembler Index plunged by 212.23 points or 2.71 percent to close at 7,628.64 points with total turnover of 5.668 million shares.
BR Cement Index fell by 42.67 points or 1.08 percent to close at 3,923.69 points with 7.214 million shares.
BR Commercial Banks Index inched down by 9.0 points or 0.11 percent to close at 8,171.31 points with 35.046 million shares.
BR Power Generation and Distribution Index declined by 134.88 points or 2.08 percent to close at 6,351.32 points with 11.398 million shares.
BR Oil and Gas Index decreased by 45.83 points or 1.22 percent to close at 3,717.00 points with 16.066 million shares.
BR Tech. & Comm. Index lost 67.13 points or 1.41 percent to close at 4,682.81 points with 20.620 million shares.
Muhammad Shuja Qureshi at JS Global Capital said that the trading week started on a negative note with heightened political uncertainty as PTI announced to dissolve Punjab and KP assemblies on 23rd December.
The KSE-100 index lost 331 points to close at 40,971 level. The KSE-100 index volumes rose to 82.4 million shares as BAFL buy-back generated a turnover of 29 million shares in the stock. Other volume leaders were WTL (down 3.1 percent), HASCOL (down 10 percent), KEL (down 0.4 percent) and DFML (down 7.4 percent).
Copyright Business Recorder, 2022