Pakistan Stock Exchange Wednesday witnessed a negative trend due to selling in various sectors. BRIndex100 lost 17.63 points or 0.4 percent to close at 4,387.38 points. BRIndex100 touched intraday high of 4,413.03 and intraday low of 4,369.52 points. Volumes stood at 108.862 million shares. BRIndex30 decreased by 130.98 points or 0.6 percent to close at 21,697.58 points with a turnover of 59.610 million shares.
The benchmark KSE-100 index declined by 126.39 points or 0.31 percent to close at 40,909.91 points. Trading activity further improved as daily volumes on the ready counter increased to 126.442 million shares as compared to 101.660 million shares traded Tuesday.
The market capitalization declined by Rs 23 billion to Rs 8.355 trillion. Out of total 370 active scrips, 237 closed in negative, 104 in positive while the value of 29 stocks remained unchanged. Dolmen City was the volume leader with 20.197 million shares. It gained Re 0.04 to close at Rs 12.76 followed by Unity Foods that lost Rs 1.51 to close at Rs 34.39 with 8.044 million shares.
Unilever Foods and Shezan International were the top gainers with Rs 175.47 and Rs 31.45, respectively to close at Rs 7,300.00 and Rs 660.45. Island Textile and Wyeth Pak were the top losers with Rs 78.00 and Rs 66.67, respectively to close at Rs 1,549.00 and Rs 1,266.83.
BR Commercial Banks Index gained 7.82 points or 0.09 percent to close at 8,582.46 points with total turnover of 9.586 million shares. BR Cement Index lost 21.35 points or 0.48 percent to close at 4,462.96 points with 11.425 million shares.
BR Oil and Gas Index decreased by 39.1 points or 0.74 percent to close at 5,240.24 points with 2.993 million shares. BR Tech. & Comm. Index closed at 1,184.60 points, down 20.32 points or 1.69 percent with 9.514 million shares. BR Power Generation and Distribution Index inched up by 7.59 points or 0.13 percent to close at 5,729.48 points with 11.357 million shares.
An analyst at Arif Habib Limited said that the KSE-100 index dipped again by 319 points, which put the pressure on buyers to pull back and be cautious. The sentiment at best can be termed cautious on the investors part, who are wary of the negotiations the new incumbents are due to have with IMF. Clearly, the market lacks triggers to take a direction or show some positivity. Like previous 2 sessions, blue chip scrips attract the flows and highlight was OGDC, which attracted significant flows from foreign side. Besides OGDC, DCR also realized high volumes in trading.
Stocks that contributed positively include HMB (up 20 points), BAHL (up 18 points), UBL (up 16 points), KTML (up 12 points) and PSEL (up 11 points) while scripts that contributed negatively include HBL (down 22 points), MEBL (down 20 points), PPL (down 14 points), LUCK (down 12 points) and OGDC (down 11 points).