KARACHI: Pakistan Stock Exchange on Monday remained under pressure as the investors opted to book profit on available margins.

The benchmark KSE-100 index hit 57,309.27 points intra-day high and 56,738.40 points intra-day low before closing at 57,077.96 points, up 14.80 points or 0.03 percent.

Trading activities remained low as total daily volumes on ready counter decreased to 718.285 million shares as compared to 901.596 million shares traded on last Friday while total daily traded value on ready counter declined to Rs 16.686 billion against previous session’s Rs 23.428 billion.

BRIndex100 lost 3.77 points or 0.06 percent to close at 5,821.04 points with total daily turnover of 639.105 million shares.

BRIndex30 fell by 44.71 points or 0.22 percent to close at 20,599.46 points with total daily trading volumes of 467.897 million shares.

The foreign investors remained net buyers of shares worth $1.578 million. Total market capitalization increased by Rs 14 billion to Rs 8.295 trillion. Out of total 377 active scrips, 202 closed in positive and 161 in negative while the value of 14 stocks remained unchanged.

K-Electric was the volume leader with 89.794 million shares and gained Re 0.26 to close at Rs 3.55 followed by WorldCall Telecom that inched up by Re 0.03 to close at Rs 1.62 with 64.623 million shares. Fauji Foods increased by Re 0.53 to close at Rs 9.34 with 50.193 million shares.

Rafhan Maize and Hoechst Pak were the top gainers increasing by Rs 721.59 and Rs 67.50 respectively to close at Rs 10342.84 and Rs 967.50 while Unilever Foods and Nestle Pakistan were the top losers declining by Rs 499.85 and Rs 100.00 respectively to close at Rs 22500.15 and Rs 8500.00.

Mohammed Waqar Iqbal at JS Global Capital said that bourse witnessed range-bound activity. The KSE-100 index touched a high and low of 57,309 and 56,738 points, respectively. Traded volume stood at 718 million shares where KEL (up 7.9 percent), WTL (up 1.9 percent), FFL (up 6.0 percent), PAEL (up 5.2 percent) and HUMNL (up 3.0 percent) were the volume leaders.

BR Automobile Assembler Index increased by 143.69 points or 1.18 percent to close at 12,305.04 points with total turnover of 20.165 million shares.

BR Cement Index declined by 119.62 points or 1.94 percent to close at 6,045.85 points with 33.849 million shares.

BR Commercial Banks Index added 81.07 points or 0.62 percent to close at 13,107.82 points with 26.658 million shares.

BR Power Generation and Distribution Index gained 38.05 points or 0.28 percent to close at 13,530.88 points with 100.790 million shares.

BR Oil and Gas Index lost 28.84 points or 0.55 percent to close at 5,257.80 points with 61.579 million shares.

BR Tech & Comm Index closed at 3,947.01 points, down 17.77 points or 0.45 percent with 126.473 million shares.

An analyst at Topline Securities said that Pakistan equities had an interesting day where bullish and bearish forces fight whole day to put their rein on market direction and ultimately bulls successfully managed to claim the day as the KSE-100 index just retained 57,000 level and settled the day on a flat note at 57,078 level, up 15 points or 0.03 percent.

Aforesaid market behavior can be attributed to the first day of NOV-Future Contract Roll over week commencement where over Rs 18 billion of positions will get rolled over by Friday. This roll over activity may likely keep recent Bull Run in check for the next couple of sessions. In addition, over 4 percent rally in international oil prices over the Friday evening also put some weigh on cyclical stocks strong momentum, during the trading hour.

Resultantly, some profit taking has been observed in Cement, E&P, Tech, Fertilizer and Power sector stocks as LUCK, OGDC, SYS, ENGRO, PPL and HUBC lost 154 points, cumulatively whereas DAWH, UBL and MEBL contributed positively to the index by adding 109 points.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2023