A bearish trend continued on Pakistan Stock Exchange despite foreign buying. Local investors opted to offload their holdings on available margins, which pushed the index down by over 38 points. BRIndex100 lost 3.01 points or 0.07 percent to close at 4,245.45 points Wednesday. BRIndex100 touched intraday high of 4,262.76 and intraday low of 4,236.11 points. Volumes stood at 132.463 million shares.
BRIndex30 decreased by 21.63 points or 0.1 percent to close at 21,344.75 points with a turnover of 92.593 million shares. The benchmark KSE-100 index declined by 38.09 points to 39,907.32 points. Daily trading volumes slightly increased to 149.572 million shares as compared to 147.302 million shares traded Tuesday.
Foreign investors however remained net buyers of shares worth $2.0 million. The market capitalization however increased by Rs 16 billion to Rs 8.435 trillion. Out of total 361 active scrips, 180 closed in positive, 166 in negative while the value of 15 stocks remained unchanged. WorldCall Telecom was the volume leader with 24.154 million shares. It gained Re 0.19 to close at Rs 3.19 followed by Japan Power that inched up by Re 0.53 to close at Rs 2.81 with 19.029 million shares.
Nestle Pakistan and Pak Tobacco were the top gainers with Rs 107.50 and Rs 42.00, respectively to close at Rs 11,500.00 and Rs 1,850.00. Bata Pak and Sanofi-Aventis were the top losers with Rs 39.15 and Rs 38.33, respectively to close at Rs 2,382.00 and Rs 1,420.00. BR Commercial Banks Index lost 9.29 points or 0.12 percent to close at 7,603.32 points with total turnover of 14.528 million shares.
BR Cement Index gained 8.23 points or 0.16 percent to close at 5.011 million shares with total volumes of 10.286 million shares. BR Oil and Gas Index closed at 4,977.95 points, down 5.36 points or 0.11 percent with 6.670 million shares. BR Tech. & Comm. Index closed at 1,199.35 points, up only 0.2 points or 0.02 percent with 31.740 million shares.
BR Power Generation and Distribution Index gained 17.82 points or 0.28 percent to close at 6,432.75 points with 42.261 million shares.
An analyst at Arif Habib Limited said another day at KSE-100 that speaks of monotonous activity, depicting low volumes, laggard activity in blue chips and buoyancy of small cap scrips. Directionless trading kept the investors at bay with some professional managers waiting for the market to stabilize and others fearing redemption. Key sectors contributing to activity in Index include Oil & Gas Sector, Fertilizer and Commercial Banks. Stocks leading the volumes include WTL, JPGL, KEL, BOP and DFML that totaled 72 million shares, reflecting 48 percent share of the total volumes. Stocks that contributed to the growth of index include PPL (up 17 points), EFERT (up 13 points), POL (up 12 points), OGDC (up 11points) and PAKT (up 11 points). On the contrary, the stocks that contributed negatively to the index include SNGP (down 28 points), KAPCO (down 27 points), UBL (down 19 points), HBL (down 14 points) and SEARL (down 10 points).