KARACHI: The share market ended down on Thursday despite positive outcome of loan approval by IMF for Pakistan.
The benchmark KSE-100 index of Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) closed at 34,570 points as against 34,897 points showing a decline of 326 points.
Analysts at Arif Habib Limited said that ‘buy the rumor, sell the news’ proved true again today, when yesterday’s signing off of IMF loan Package to Pakistan led the index with positive 400 points earlier today, but soon the selling pressure kicked in and caused the index to plunge by -430 points by the end of session, closing the index with -326 points.
Cement, Steel, Fertilizer contributed to declines, whereas key scrips in banking and Power sector remained positive.
Similar to yesterday’s trading activity, Cement and Chemical Sectors led the volumes table with Cement ranking first (22 million) followed by Chemical (14 million). Among scrips, KEL topped the chart with 9M shares, followed by TRG (8 million).
Sectors contributing to the performance include Cement (-73 points), E&P (-63 points), O&GMCs (-50 points), Fertilizer (-32 points) and Pharma (-30 points).
Volumes declined from 130 million shares to 112 million shares (-14 percent DoD). Average traded value also declined by 9 percent to reach US$ 27.8 million as against US$ 30.5 million.
Stocks that contributed significantly to the volumes include KEL, TRG, MLCF, LOTCHEM and UNITY, which formed 33 percent of total volumes.
Stocks that contributed positively include HUBC (+22 points), HBL (+9 points), ENGRO (+5 points), IGIHL (+4 points) and INDU (+4 points). Stocks that contributed negatively include OGDC (-33 points), LUCK (-33 points), PPL (-24 points), PSO (-20 points) and SNGP (-19 points).
