KARACHI: The Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) extended declines with benchmark KSE 100-index breaking its previous low to make an intra-day low of 745 points to go down to 37,737 points. A recovery was witnessed in the latter hour as the index made an intra-day high of 139 points and closed at 38,525 points after gaining only 43 points.
Market’s advance was affected by political uncertainty where deadlock in Senate over proposed bills has raised concerns over timely elections in 2018. Further, volatility in the Pakistani Rupee also raised sector specific confusion where after closing at Rs108.75 to the dollar the previous day, Pak Rupee slipped again yesterday to a high of Rs111.5 before settling at around Rs110.6/Rs111, said dealer at Topline Securities.
Top index point leaders were HUBC (up 3%), HBL (1.6%), ENGRO (2.1%), PSO (3.3%) & POL (1.7%), adding 160 points to the index, while stocks including DAWH (down 2.8%), DGKC (2.2%), LUCK (1%), INIL (4.6%) & FFC (1%) withheld 70 points from the index.
On the sector front, power generation and distribution added 76 points, commercial banks added 43 points, oil & gas exploration companies added 41 points. On the flip side, cement took away 37 points, insurance fell by 26 points and engineering was down 22 points.
Investors interest was witnessed in the banking space as mixed sentiments were seen where NBP (up 0.98%), MCB (0.34%) and HBL (1.61%) closed in the green zone, however UBL (down 0.45%) closed in the red trajectory, said analyst at JS Global. Traded volumes were up by 51% DoD to 195m shares while traded value was up by 43% to $78m. TRG was the volume leader for the day with more than 18m shares traded.
