A bearish trend continued on Pakistan Stock Exchange Wednesday. The benchmark KSE-100 index lost another 328.39 points to close at 43,792.19 points. After opening on a negative note, the index hit 43,027.28 points intra-day low, down 1,093.30 points. However, buying at the fag end supported the index to minimize its losses. Foreign investors remained net sellers of shares worth $8.2 million.
Daily trading volumes increased to 215.169 million shares as compared to 185.167 million shares traded Tuesday. The market capitalization decreased by Rs 21 billion to Rs 9.035 trillion. Out of total 345 active scrips, 189 closed in negative, 144 in positive while the value of 12 stocks remained unchanged. K-Electric was the volume leader with 19.924 million shares. It gained Rs 0.32 to close at Rs 6.76 followed by TRG Pak that increased by Rs 0.29 to close at Rs 36.13 with 14.766 million shares. Engro Polymer lost Rs 0.92 to close at Rs 33.28 with 8.489 million shares.
Wyeth Pak and Island Textile were the top gainers with Rs 71.86 and Rs 43.76, respectively to close at Rs 2,100.39 and Rs 920.75. Rafhan Maize and Hinopak Motor were the top losers with Rs 150.00 and Rs 63.29, respectively to close at Rs 6,650.00 and Rs 1,300.01.
Arhum Ghous at JS Global Capital said that in continuation to Tuesday's declining trend, the index further slipped by 1,093 points in the early hours of the trading session. However, it later recovered to close at 43,792 level, down 328 points as buying was witnessed on attractive price levels. The Auto sector shed points, on account of the PAMA numbers showing a decline in Auto sales of 2.0 percent YoY in FY17 and 25 percent MoM in June 2017. HCAR (down 4.81 percent) and PSMC (down 5.0 percent) from the aforementioned sector closed in red. Commercial bank heavyweights witnessed buying during the latter hours, with HBL (up 1.73 percent), ABL (up 1.96 percent) and NBP (up 2.30 percent) closing in the green zone. OGDC (up 3.98 percent) and PPL (up 2.72 percent) gained points on account of increasing prices of oil in the global market on U.S. government cutting its crude production outlook for next year and fuel inventories plunging.
An analyst at Topline Securities said that the market opened on a bearish note carrying momentum from Tuesday's sell-off. Initially, the KSE-100 index shed 1,093 points or 2.5 percent slipping to an intraday low of 43,027 points, which subsequently triggered some value hunting. Select buying in E&P's, Banks,
Fertilizer and Power sectors helped the index regain lost ground, and eventually close down by only 328pts albeit at 2017's lowest level. Top Index point decliners were LUCK (down 3.6 percent), HUBC (down 3.3 percent), ENGRO (down 2.8 percent), DGKC (down 5.0 percent) and SNGP (down 4.7 percent); withholding 265 points, while OGDC (up 4.4 percent), HBL (up 2.0 percent), FFC (up 5.0 percent), PPL (up 3.1 percent) and KAPCO (up 3.6 percent) added 239 points. On the sector front, Cement shed 169 points, OMCs 71 points and Auto Assemblers 30 points; while E&P's added 93 points and Banks added 10 points. FFC (up 5.0 percent) managed to hit its upper limit on the back of attractive valuation.