KARACHI: The Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) continued with bearish and low volume trend for the third straight day on Monday, with the benchmark KSE-100 Index shedding 257.05 points (-0.54 percent) to close at 46,912.79 points.
The market opened on a negative note by shedding 35 points and remained negative for almost the whole session. The KSE-100 Index moved in a range of 500.9 points, showing an intraday high of 47,173 points and an intraday low of 46,672.1 points.
Among other indices, the KSE All Share Index shed 217.13 points (-0.67 percent) to close at 32,052.33 points, while All Share Islamic Index shed 137.21 points (-0.59 percent) to close at 22,947.2 points.
A total of 379 companies traded shares in the stock exchange, out of them shares of 100 closed up, shares of 262 closed down while shares of 17 companies remained unchanged. Of the 97 traded companies in the KSE-100 Index, 24 closed up 72 closed down, while 1 remained unchanged.
The overall market volumes increased by 38.45 million to 251.81 million shares. Total volume traded for the KSE-100 Index was 88.22 million shares. The number of total trades increased by 14,455 to 103,266; and the value traded increased by Rs0.87 billion to Rs10.15 billion. Likewise, the market capitalisation decreased to Rs19.19 billion.
Among scrips, WTL realised total volumes of 22.21 million shares, followed by TELE (19.38 million) and TRG (13.72 million). Stocks that contributed significantly to the volumes include WTL, TELE, TRG, ANL and TREET, which formed 32 percent of total volumes.
Sector wise, the index was let down by cement with 66 points, power generation & distribution with 28 points, textile composite with 28 points, commercial banks with 19 points and oil & gas exploration companies with 19 points. The most points taken off the index were by LUCK which stripped the index of 28 points followed by HUBC with 17 points, PPL with 15 points, CHCC with 14 points and ANL with 13 points.
The sectors propping up the index were fertilizer with 7 points, paper & board with 3 points, engineering with 2 points, glass & ceramics with one point and real estate investment trust with one point. The most points added to the index was by EFERT which contributed 12 points followed by BAHL with 8 points, ENGRO with 5 points, POL with 5 points and UNITY with 5 points.
According to experts, the local bourse retreated as investors closely watched geopolitical implications of Afghan Taliban’s taking over their control in Afghanistan. This situation has pushed the investors’ interest into panic selling, they added.
However, recovery was seen in the last hours where the index found support from the major technical levels. On the news front, LSM marked a growth of 14.85 percent in FY 2020-21 (16-year high) and APG has improved Pakistan’s rating after fulfilling 35 out of 40 recommendations of FATF against money laundering, terror financing and others, said a market closing note by Pearl Securities.
