KARACHI: Continuing with the declining trend, the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) ended the last session ahead of holidays also in the red.
The indices, which opened the day positively, failed to sustain its gains and slipped to another 52-week low in the second half of the session owing to institutional selling.
On the economic front, the State Bank of Pakistan revealed on Thursday that the country’s foreign exchange reserves for the week ended August 02, 2019, have declined by 0.49pc.
The foreign exchange reserves held by the central bank decreased by $37.9 million on a weekly basis and were recorded at $7.72 billion, compared with $7,767 million in the previous week. The decrease in reserves was due to external debt servicing and other official payments.
The KSE-100 Index managed to open the day positively, gaining 296.70 points to reach its intraday high of 30,034.68. However, the index soon crumbled to the selling pressure and registered its day’s low at 29,332.80 (-405.18 points). It finally settled lower by 308.41 points at 29,429.07.
The sectors that pulled the index down included commercial banks (-142.90 points) and oil and gas exploration (-119.37 points).
A total of 40 scripts in the index ended positively while 48 closed in red.
The situation in other indices also remained dull, as the KSE All Share Index slipped by 104.09 points, KMI-30 Index lost 682.58 points while the KSE-30 Index laid off 200.74 points.
In other exchange-related news, Nishat (Chunian) Limited (NCL +4.99pc) board of directors have decided to recommend the members to buy back shares up to a maximum of 32 million ordinary shares at a price of Rs32 each. The stock price jumped to its upper cap following the announcement.
