KARACHI: A bearish trend continued to prevail at the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) on Wednesday, with the benchmark KSE-100 Index shedding 164 points to close at 43,441.
The benchmark hit a day’s high of 43,724 points, only 19 points above yesterday’s closing. It hit a day’s low of 43,416 points near the close of trading.
In all, 142.4 million shares worth Rs5.9 billion changed hands during the session. Of the 354 traded scrips, 102 advanced, 230 declined and 22 remained unchanged. Overall, the food and personal care products sectors dominated trading with 18.3m shares traded, while the banking and cement sectors followed with 13.5m and 13m shares changing hands.
Yesterday, the stocks failed to maintain positive trajectory and closed down 124 points at 43,705 points. Market opened positive and touched a high of 215 points as institutional participation was witnessed mainly in the cement stocks.
Top 5 stocks including DGKC (up 2.5%), HCAR ( 4.3%), BAFL (1.9%), FCCL (1.4%) & BATA (4.5%) added 50 points to the index gain, whereas stocks including HBL (down 1.6%), ENGRO (1.2%), BAHL (1.7%), KTML (3.5%) & LUCK (0.6%), withheld 114 points from the index gain.
Volumes improved from 137m shares to 177.5m shares (up 30% DoD). Average traded value also increased from $53.5m to $72.8m (+36% DoD). Stocks that contributed significantly to the volumes included FCCL, UNITY, DSL, BYCO and NRSL, reflecting 28% of total volumes.
