KARACHI: The Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) closed negative on Thursday, with the benchmark KSE-100 index losing 326 points to close at 40,266.
The index had climbed slightly early in the session to hit a day’s high of 40,713, but began shedding points to touch a low of 40,137 before close.
Around 102 million shares worth Rs5.4 billion changed hands during the day, and only 122 of the 336 traded scrips gained as 203 declined and 11 remained unchanged.
he power generation and distribution sector dominated trading for the second session in a row with 13.9m shares traded. K-Electric remained the most-traded company. The technology and refinery sectors followed with 12.9m and 11.9m shares traded respectively.
Mutual funds continued their selling spree and were net sellers of Rs337m in the session, joined closely by foreign corporations.
Earlier, the socks opened on bullish note after adding 121 points to reach 40713 points level in early trading. The PSX became bearish till midday and lost huge 399 points to drop to 40193 level.
On Wednesday, another weak trading session was witnessed at the PSX. The KSE 100-index closed marginally up at 40,592 points after gaining 43 points).
Participant interest was centered around K-Electric (KEL up 10%) turning over 77m shares or 49% of the days volume, as comments from Privatization Minister regarding Shanghai Electric’s looming takeover sparked a mind boggling rally in the battered stock. On the sector front, E&Ps added 25 points, tobacco 19 points, engineering/OMCs 15 points each, while banks held back 57 points, followed by auto assemblers that took away 16 points from the index. Traded volumes were up by 54% DoD to 157m shares while traded value was up by 1.5% to $50m.
