KARACHI: The Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) Tuesday shed mammoth 903.12 points or 2.15 per cent at closing to drop to 41115.78 as disqualified prime minister Nawaz Sharif was re-elected president of ruling party Pakistan Muslim League-N.
Market talk doing the rounds today suggested that Nawaz Sharif’s comeback after President Mamnoon Hussain signed the controversial Election Act 2017 into law may have paved way for his political future, but has created further uncertainty in the minds of investors who were already jittery looking at major economic indicators.
The PSX’s KSE-100 Index was Asia’s top-performer in 2016, but has been dominated by the bears this year with correction, political uncertainty and economic worries taking their toll on investors.
The stocks recorded the highest trading level of 42456.53 points and lowest level of 42195.09 points, with the volume of 121 million shares and value of Rs6.7 billion. As many as 365 companies were active; of which 56 advanced, 296 declined and 13 remained unchanged.
Maple Leaf was the volume leader with 9.56 million shares, shedding Rs4.10 to reach Rs78.87. It was followed by TRG Pak Ltd with 6.83 million shares, losing Rs1.74 to end at Rs35.31 and K-Electric Ltd with 6.80 million shares, dropping Rs0.06 to close at Rs6.86. The top three gainers were Wyeth Pak Ltd with price per share of 1839.75 (86.25), Bhanero Tex with price per share of 763.63 (36.35) and Khyber Tobacco of 840 (13.73).
The top three losers were Murree Brewery with price per share of 784.94 (-41.06), Indus Motor Co with price per share of 1670 (-28.15) and Lucky Cement share of 522.98 (-27.52).
Earlier, the PSX opened bearish shedding 141.70 points and also lost 42,000 mark and reach 41877 points level in early trading. The stocks shed huge 661 points or 1.57 per cent in intra-day trading, going as low as 41,370.
On Monday, the stocks witnessed an exceptionally dull session on first trading day of the week as the benchmark KSE 100-index lost 390 points and closed at 42,019 points.
Activity was slowest in over two years; first day of October saw only $38.2m (down 26% d/d) exchanging hands as ex-Prime Minister made a court appearance.
Market participants said CPI numbers for the month of Sep-2017 were released yesterday that clocked in at 3.86%. Selling pressure was also witnessed in the cement sector where LUCK (down 2.60%), CHCC (1.73%), FCCL (2.00%) and POWER (1.94%) closed in the red trajectory.
Scrips of total 378 active companies were traded in the session of which 254 concluded in the decline, 109 in advance while 15 remained unchanged.
Average daily volume shrunk by 49% DoD to 89m shares along with average traded value that clocked in at Rs4b, down by 26% DoD. Volume leaders were CWSM (6.3%), TRG (6.3%), NCL (5.2%), KEL (5.1%) and BGL (4.4%), contributing 27.4% of total volume.
