KARACHI: The Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) closed the week on a negative note as the benchmark KSE-100 Index plunged 132 points to close at 43,363.
The benchmark index showed positive activity in the first few minutes of trading but could not sustain the momentum and adopted a negative trend for the most of the session.
The index hit a day’s high of 43,526 points during the second half of the day, whereas it hit a day’ low of 43,311 near the close of trading.
Volumes slipped slightly, as 193 million shares worth Rs6.7 billion changed hands compared to 220m shares worth Rs5.73b traded on the previous day. Of the 357 traded scrips, 128 advanced, 217 declined and 12 remained unchanged.
Overall, the chemical sector dominated the trading activity with 32m shares traded, while the communication and electrical goods sectors followed with 27m and 21.65m shares changing hands, respectively.
Yesterday, the benchmark 100-index closed at level of 43,495 points, witnessing meager growth of 87 points.
Chemical sector is gaining attention of market participants for last two days, where LOTCHEM continued its top position on volume leaders chart (35m shares) as margins of the sector constituents are improving.
E&P scripts added 38 points to index gain as international crude oil price was up by 30 cents. Healthy trading in small cap stocks helped volumetric activity to grow with 11%. Whereas, traded value was down by 16%.
Top 5 stocks including HBL (+1.1%), PIBTL (+6.1%), POL (+1.1%), OGDC (+0.6%) & PAKT (+2.1%) added 93 points to the index gain, whereas stocks including UBL (-1.2%), LUCK (-0.7%), FFC (-0.5%), AICL (-1.7%) & CHCC (-1.7%), withheld 52 points from the index.
