KARACHI: The Pakistan Stock Exchange 100-Index remained bearish for the sixth successive trading session, reaching close to 41,500 points as selling pressure persisted amid concerns over the country’s macroeconomic indicators and political uncertainty.
Concerns over falling foreign exchange reserves added to worries as the index plunged over 400 points in intra-day trading before staging a slight recovery.
At close, the benchmark KSE 100-share Index recorded a decrease of 246.13 points or 0.59% to settle at 41,623.52.
Mixed sentiments were witnessed in the banking sector where MCB Bank (+1.01%) and United Bank (+0.64%) closed positive while on the flipside Habib Bank (-0.44%) and National Bank (-0.88%) lost value.
The cement sector continued its declining trend as heavyweights such as Fauji Cement (-2.49%), Lucky Cement (-2.26%), Pioneer Cement (-0.99%) and Cherat Cement (-1.44%) closed in the red.
Shares of 313 companies were traded. At the end of the day, 78 stocks closed higher, 218 declined while 17 remained unchanged.
Overall, trading volumes rose to 82.8 million shares compared with Thursday’s tally of 56.9 million. The value of shares traded during the day was Rs4.3 billion.
K-Electric was the volume leader with 5.9 million shares, losing Rs0.11 to close at Rs6.01. It was followed by Sui Southern Gas Company with 5.6 million shares, gaining Rs0.82 to close at Rs36.86 and Pak Elektron (XD) with 5.2 million shares, losing Rs1.39 to close at Rs35.56.
Foreign institutional investors were net sellers of Rs354.1 million worth of shares during the trading session, according to data compiled by the National Clearing Company of Pakistan.
Yesterday, trading at PSX remained dull while the benchmark index continued to shed points on the first day of Ramazan.
The KSE-100 index closed at 41,870 points after losing 432 points with the overall trend of the market remaining downward with some sideways trading.
Only 56.9 million shares worth Rs2.6 billion were traded at the exchange, and only 71 of the 298 traded scrips gained in value while 209 scrips declined and 18 remained unchanged. The cement sector dominated trading with 8.16m shares traded, while electrical goods and power generation followed with 7.35m and 5.32m shares traded respectively.
