KARACHI: The Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) on Monday managed to close positive after witnessing a lcaklustre session as the benchmark KSE-100 Index gained 88 points to close at 43,829.
The benchmark index showed mixed activity during the initial hours of trading, touching the day’s high of 43,875 points and then sliding into the red for most of the session and touching a day’s low of 43,655 points.
Volumes showed a significant decline, as 137 million shares worth Rs5.9 billion changed hands compared to 229.9m shares worth Rs9.6b traded on the last trading day. Of the 352 traded scrips, 161 advanced, 173 declined and 18 remained unchanged.
Overall, the chemicals sector dominated trading with 27.9m shares traded, while cements and communications scrips followed with 17.2m and 13.4m shares changing hands. Turnover in the wider market clocked in just under $55m, down 29 per cent, it added.
Last week, traded volumes declined by 2 percent WoW to 181million, however ADTO went up by 1 percent to $74million. However, benchmark KSE-100 index managed to close in the green zone at 43,740 pts (up 1 percent), mainly attributable to heavyweight sectors such as (1) Cements (+7 percent on price increase of Rs10/bag in the North), (2) OMCs (+1 percent WoW) and (3) Power (+2 percent WoW) sectors. FATF related news flow mainly impacted the banking sector (down 1 percent WoW) on fears of tightening global scrutiny.
