Karachi Stock Exchange witnessed another volatile session Tuesday as the benchmark KSE-100 index shed 193 points to close at 33,191 points down from 33,384 points. Ahsan Mehanti, analyst at Arif Habib said stocks closed bearish post major earning announcements at KSE amid concerns for weak earnings outlook. "Falling global commodities, dismal exports data, political uncertainty, disturbed Pak-India relations related to Line of Control violations played a catalytic role in the bearish activity at KSE," he added.
During the intraday day trading, the market moved in the red and the green zone touching 33,418 points highest and 33,109 points lowest level. Following the negative sentiment, the market capitalisation fell by Rs 36 billion to Rs 7.141 trillion down from Rs 7.177 trillion. Trading volume at the ready counter remained thin as overall some 132 million shares were traded compared to 133 million a day earlier.
Trading took place in 366 companies, of which 110 closed in green zone, 229 in the red, while share prices of 27 companies remained unchanged. Major activity was seen in TRG Pak Ltd, Byco Petroleum, Jah. Sidd. Co XR, TRG Pak(R) and Dewan Cement with trading volumes of 10.32 million, 7.8 million, 7.7 million, 7.4 million and 6.3 million shares, respectively. Analysts at JS said volatility continued in Tuesday's session as the index lost 193 points with considerably low volumes. "Cherry picking was witnessed in the cement sector where only LUCK (+0.33 percent) closed slightly positive, while overall the sector remained depressed," said Ahmed Saeed Khan analyst at JS.
After the announcement by Prime Minister of efforts to take back the recent urea price hike, fertiliser sector rebounded a little, where major beneficiary of this would be FFBL (+2.40 percent) as this would entail that the price increase by FFC and EFERT per bag would be taken back shortly, he added. Analysts at Topline said that Asian bourses slumped on Tuesday amid persistent fears over the world's second largest economy. Additionally, buyers remained cautious ahead of an important US Federal Reserve announcement expected on Thursday.
They said that the benchmark KSE-100 index shed 601 points or 1.8 percent in last three trading session. Oil stocks remained under pressure, amid volatile international oil prices, as witnessed from Oil and Gas Development Company (OGDC), Pakistan oilfields (POL) and Pakistan Petroleum (PPL) which are down by 1.2 percent, 0.9 percent and 0.2 percent respectively, they added. The government's decision to subsidise urea prices was ignored by the market due to weak sentiment. Fertiliser stocks Fauji Fertiliser (FFC), Engro Fertiliser (EFERT) and Fatima Fertiliser (FATIMA) fell in the range of .01-2.5 percent, they maintained. Pak Tobacco and Sapphire Tex were the top gainers with Rs 43.59 and Rs 38.99 to close at Rs 919.09 and Rs 885.00, respectively. Service Ind Ltd and Shezan Inter. were the top losers with Rs 39.54 and Rs 35.89 to close at Rs 800.46 and Rs 789.11, respectively.