Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) witnessed another volatile session Friday. The benchmark KSE-100 index kept oscillating between 49,273.31 points intra-day high and 48,939.52 points intra-day low before settling at 49,008.00 points, down 54.26 points.
Trading activity slightly improved as daily trading volumes increased to 275.386 million shares as compared to 266.165 million shares traded Thursday. The market capitalisation decreased by Rs 01 billion to Rs 9.704 trillion. Out of total 414 active scrips, 261 closed in negative, 136 in positive while the value of 17 stocks remained unchanged.
Aisha Steel Mill was the volume leader with 24.388 million shares. However, the scrip declined by Rs 1.08 to close at Rs 25.05 followed by K-Electric that gained Rs 0.06 to close at Rs 9.81 with 22.309 million shares. Azgard Nine increased by Rs 0.63 to close at Rs 9.32 with 18.918 million shares.
Nestle Pakistan and Rafhan Maize were top gainers with Rs 450.00 and Rs 110.50, respectively to close at Rs 9,450.00 and Rs 7,710.00. Wyeth Pak and Sanofi-Aventis were top losers with Rs 151.20 and Rs 85.89, respectively to close at Rs 3,965.13 and Rs 2,404.11. Ahsan Mehanti at Arif Habib Corporation said that pressure remained in blue chip oil stocks amid thin trade and concerns for foreign outflows, surging circular debt in the energy sector and dismal payouts in the earnings season. Institutional support in blue chip banking, fertilizer and cement stocks supported the index to close above session lows. He said consolidation post major earning announcements at PSX played a catalyst role in bearish close in the futures contracts rollover week.
Nabeel Haroon at JS Global Capital said that the market opened on a positive note and rallied to make an intraday high of 212 points. This positivity prevailed in the market for most of the day. However pressure was witnessed in the market during eleventh hour as the index declined to close 0.11 percent lower than its previous day close. BAFL in banking sector declined to close on its lower circuit as the banking company declared its result for 2016. In its result, company posted EPS of Rs 4.96/share with no dividend payout against market expectation of Rs 2/share dividend. NCL (down 5.0 percent) declined to close on its lower cap as the company declared is result for its 1HFY17 in which it posted EPS of Rs 4.68/share.