Equities moved both ways on the Lahore Stock Exchange on Friday and finally ended in negative zone amid decreased trading turnover. The LSE-25 index was marginally declined by 3.52 points and was ended at 4365.52 against 4369.04 of Thursday while transaction volume was squeezed to 1.928 million shares compared with last day volume of 2.273 million shares.
The market was opened on a healthy sign and stayed in positive zone during first trading session. As soon as second session commenced, the investors started offloading their holdings to secure their positions ahead of weekend.
Buying in PPL, PSO, Pagen Power, Engro Foods, PTCL, D.G. Khan Cement, Bank of Punjab, Bank Alfalah, Pervez Ahmed Securities and Pace Pakistan helped market avert more declines while MCB Bank, Allied Bank, Askari Bank, Adamjee Insurance, Engro Corporation, IGI Insurance, Fauji Fertiliser, Fauji Fertiliser Bin Qasim, Nishat Mills and PIAC remained under selling pressure.
The declining stocks were ahead of the advancing ones, as out of a total of 85 active issues, 15 companies posted gains, 22 went down, while 48 companies remained unchanged at their last day closing.
Among gainers, PPL was improved by Rs 3.46, Engro Foods gained Rs 2.88 while PSO was appreciated by Rs 1.00.
In the minus column, MCB Bank lost Rs 8.59, Adamjee Insurance was declined by Rs 3.80, Engro Corporation shed Rs 3.32, while IGI Insurance and Fauji Fertiliser were down by Rs 3.25 and Rs 1.09, respectively. Southern Electric Power with trading of 313,000 shares topped the volume leaders followed by Fauji Cement with 243,000 shares.