After gaining some 775 points in last three sessions, profit-taking dragged the equities into the negative zone on the last working day of the week Friday. The index lost 49.36 points to close 27,116 points down from 27,166 points Thursday. Ahsan Mehanti, Director, Arif Habib said stocks closed bearish on Friday amid concerns for deadlock on peace talks with TTP as cease-fire is expiring on Monday.
He said trade remained thin as institutional profit-taking in blue-chip oil, cement and textile stocks impacted the sentiment ahead of quarter-end close at KSE. "Concerns over exports in textile and cement sectors and dismal earnings outlook for fertilizer sector after the ECC approval on fertilisers import played a catalyst role in bearish sentiment in overbought stocks at KSE," he added.
The KSE-100 index hit an intraday high of 27,299 points and a low of 27,089 points. Volume at the ready counter declined to 171 million shares as compared to previous 255 million. Trading took place in 354 scrips, of which prices of 150 went up, 185 went down and that of 19 remained unchanged. Despite a negative trend, the market capitalisation rose by Rs 6 billion to Rs 6.573 trillion.
Among Top Ten scrips, prices of five stocks closed positive. B.O.Punjab emerged volume leader with 22.3 million shares gaining Re 0.22 to close at Rs 10.64. Summit Bank remained second highest losing Re 0.19 to Rs 3.08 on 10 million shares. Faysal Bank closed at Rs 14.08, down by Re. 0.27 on 8.9 million shares. Some 6.6 million shares of Lotte Pakistan were traded. It gained Re. 0.22 to Rs 7.21. NIB Bank Limited rose by Re 0.05 to close at Rs 2.35 on 5.6 million shares. Avanceon declined by Re. 0.85 to Re 25.14 on 5.2 million shares.
Share price of P.T.C.L.A and Lafarge Pak inched up by Re. 0.18 and Re. 0.04 to close at Rs 30.69 and Rs 11.18, respectively on 5 million and 4.9 million shares. Pak Reinsurance and Adamjee Ins. declined by Re. 0.36 and Re. 0.43 to Rs 32.93 and Rs 46.56, respectively. Rafhan Maize and Unilever Foods were the top gainers with Rs 451.50 and Rs 100.00 to close at Rs 9,481.50 and Rs 9,000.00, respectively. Bata (Pak) and Island Textile were the top losers with Rs 24.61 and Rs 18.90 to close at Rs 2,775.39 and Rs 1,011.10, respectively.
Commenting on the market situation, Samar Iqbal, Assistant Vice President at Topline Securities said the market posted an increase of 775 points in last 3 sessions, however some profit-taking was seen on last trading day which pushed the index down by 50 points. "Profit-taking was seen in oil and cement stocks while banking stocks - MCB and UBL continued to rally," he added.