Despite foreign buying, Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) Thursday remained under heavy selling pressure due to investor concerns on various issues. The benchmark KSE-100 index declined by 362.28 points to close at 49,392.44 points. Foreign investors emerged net buyers of shares worth $6.6 million. However, local investors and institutions opted to offload their holdings on available margins.
Trading activity also remained low as the daily trading volumes decreased to 220.426 million shares as compared to 245.065 million shares traded Wednesday. The market capitalisation declined by Rs 92 billion to Rs 9.735 trillion. Out of total 405 active scrips, 294 closed in negative, only 93 in positive while the value of 18 stocks remained unchanged.
Azgard Nine was the volume leader with 12.359 million shares. It declined by Rs 0.50 to close at Rs 10.33 followed by Lotte Pakistan that lost Rs 0.31 to close at Rs 11.01 with 11.124 million shares. K-Electric closed at Rs 9.66, down Rs 0.27 with 10.456 million shares.
Rafhan Maize and Unilever Foods were the top gainers with Rs 200.00 and Rs 73.68, respectively to close at Rs 7,750.00 and Rs 5,473.68. Nestle Pakistan and Wyeth Pak were the top losers with Rs 275.00 and Rs 139.66, respectively to close at Rs 9,025.00 and Rs 2,653.71.
Nabeel Haroon at JS Global Capital said that lackluster activity prevailed in the market for most part of the day as volumes stood low and the index continuously juggled between the positive and negative zone. Later on heavy selling pressure was observed in the market during the eleventh hour as investors came in to offload their holding eyeing political uncertainty and strong vigilance by the regulator (SECP) in the near future. FFBL (up 1.65 percent) in the fertilizer sector extended its previous day gain on the back of the news that there has been record DAP sales in the month of February-2017. This increase in DAP sales was mainly due to aggressive buying by the dealers in anticipation of increase in local DAP prices amid rising international DAP prices. On the contrary, other fertilizer manufacturers lost value to close in the red zone on the back of market consensus that there will be a decline in urea sales number due to be released for the month of February-17. FFC (down 1.49 percent) and EFERT (down 1.59 percent) were major losers of the fertilizer sector. TPL gained to close on its upper circuit on the back of material information disseminated in the market that its subsidiary TPL Life Insurance Limited has submitted an application with Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) proposing initial public offering of its shares and listing thereof on PSX.
Ahsan Mehanti at Arif Habib Corporation said that stocks closed bearish amid concerns outcome of regulatory oversight over non-compliance of brokerage firms. Surging trade deficit amid falling exports and falling global crude prices invited late session pressure amid consolidation in the post earning announcement session. He said concerns for rising circular debt in the energy sector played a catalyst role in bearish close.