Market watch
Benchmark KSE-100 index dips 0.65% to close at 45,682.11
The Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) remained bearish on Wednesday amid political uncertainty, with the benchmark KSE-100 Index shedding 299.71 points (-0.65 percent) to close the session at 45,682.11 points.
The market opened on a negative note and remained negative throughout the session, touching an intraday low of 45,612.8. Among other indices, the KSE All Share Index shed 80.76 points (-0.26 percent) to close at 30,794.25 points, while All Share Islamic Index shed 9.23 points (-0.04 percent) to close at 22,204.79 points.
The selling spree was largely due to creation of a forward bloc by treasury lawmakers belonging to Jahangir tareen Group, which led to loss of investors’ confidence in the market.
A total of 398 companies traded shares in the stock exchange, out of them shares of 148 closed up, shares of 234 closed down while shares of 16 companies remained unchanged.
The overall market volumes increased by 41.52 million to 578.31 million shares, while market capitalisation decreased by Rs20.69 billion. The number of total trades decreased by 12,446 to 161,766, and value traded decreased by Rs2.31 billion to Rs20.80 billion.
Among scrips, KEL topped the volumes with 65.42 million shares, followed by UNITY (56.95 million) and HASCOL (44.15 million). Stocks that contributed significantly to the volumes include KEL, UNITY, HASCOL, BYCO and TRG, which formed 36 percent of total volumes.
Sector wise, the index was let down by technology & communication with 83 points, cement with 72 points, commercial banks with 53 points, textile composite with 29 points and oil & gas marketing companies with 24 points. The most points were taken off the index by TRG which stripped the index of 70 points followed by LUCK with 24 points, HBL with 23 points, PSO with 22 points and HUBC with 22 points.
The sectors propping up the index were oil & gas exploration companies with 18 points, paper & board with 8 points, glass & ceramics with 5 points, chemical with 3 points and synthetic & rayon with 2 points. The most points added to the index were by MARI which contributed 16 points followed by HASCOL with 14 points, KEL with 14 points, OGDC with 13 points and ENGRO with 10 points.
