KARACHI: The equity market plunged by 425 points on Friday owing to across the board selling.
The benchmark KSE-100 index of Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) closed at 36,122 points as against 36,547 points showing a decline of 425 points.
Analysts at Arif Habib Limited said that the market opened on a negative note with -3 points and a dull outlook.
After a negligible move of +9 points, the index continued down trodding and by end of first session, the market was down 315 points with a paltry 26 million shares in trading volume.
Second session saw further attrition and the index slid by a total of 476 points and ended -425 points.
Selling was observed across the board and contributed by mainly Banks and E&P sectors. Declining international crude prices caused the onslaught of E&P scrips, with OGDC regressing 1.8 percent with a volume of 2.4 million shares. Amongst Cement sector, FCCL and MLCF contributed in top 10 stocks.
Sectors contributing to the performance include E&P (-128 points), Banks (-95 points), Fertilizer (-60 points), O&GMCs (-30 points), Cement (-24 points). Volumes remained low at 64 million shares as against 68 million shares yesterday (-5 percent DoD).
Average traded value on the contrary increased by 18 percent to reach US$ 20.7 million as against US$ 17.5 million.
Stocks that contributed significantly to the volumes include UNITY, FCCL, BOP, LOTCHEM and OGDC, which formed 32 percent of total volumes.
Stocks that contributed positively include BAHL (+13 points), PSMC (+6 points), COLG (+6 points), IGIHL (+5 points), and NATF (+4 points). Stocks that contributed negatively include HBL (-57 points), PPL (-55 points), POL (-37 points), OGDC (-33 points) and ENGRO (-29 points).
