KARACHI: The Pakistan Stock Exchange Wednesday took a roller-coaster ride as the benchmark 100-index shed 553.76 points to reach 49214.15 points level at closing.
The stocks recorded the highest trading level of 49922.34 points and lowest level of 49097.02 points, with the volume of over 417.52 million shares and value of Rs 17.46 billion. As many as 399 companies were active; of which 105 advanced, 277 declined and 17 remained unchanged.
K-Electric was the volume leader with 45.36 million shares, shedding Rs 0.17 to finish at Rs 9.92. It was followed by Power Cement with 39.42 million shares, adding Rs 0.78 to end at Rs 20.72 and Media Times Ltd with 19.44 million shares, gaining Rs 0.21 to close at Rs 5.08.
The top three gainers were Wyeth Pak Ltd with price per share of 4370 (106.66), Service Ind. Ltd with price per share of 1517.22 (67.22) and Jubile Life Ins share of 669.50 (24.28).
The top three losers were Sanofi-Aventis with price per share of 2575 (-76.89), Hinopak Motor with price per share of 1621.25 (-54.01) and Millat Tractors per share of 1002.65 (-51.38).
Earlier, the stocks started trading on positive note and added 148 points to reach 49915.64 points level in early trading. The Pakistan Stock Exchange shed all the early gains till midday and lost massive 487 points to drop to 49280.77 points level.
On Tuesday, the range-bound activities witnessed at the PSX with benchmark index lost 197 points. Market opened on a weak note on the back of unfortunate terrorist incident in Lahore. During the latter hours, selling pressure was witnessed in the market by sceptical investors as the index lost around 198 points to close at around 49,768 level.
Index heavyweight HBL (rose 0.42%) closed in the green zone as the banking company declared its year end result for 2016. In its result, the company posted an EPS of Rs23.23/share along with a dividend announcement of Rs3.5/share taking the full year payout to Rs14/share.
Aisha Steel emerged the volume leader with 40 million traded shares. Overall, volumes decreased by 2.4 percent to 353 million shares, while value declined by 8.5 percent to Rs17.2 billion.
