KARACHI: The Pakistan Stock Exchange Wednesday remained under pressure over profit-taking and shed 216.75 points to reach 46993.31 points level at closing.
The stocks recorded the highest trading level of 47325.91 points and lowest level of 46344.88 points, with the volume of over 388.56 million shares and value of Rs 21.417 billion. As many as 399 companies were active; of which 108 advanced, 273 declined and 18 remained unchanged.
Dost Steels Ltd was the volume leader with 31.13 million shares, shedding Rs 0.79 to finish at Rs 10.77. It was followed by BoP with 22 million shares, losing Rs 0.76 to end at Rs 17.32 and K-Electric with 14.22 million shares, dropping Rs 0.10 to close at Rs 9.28.
The top three gainers were Unilever Foods with price per share of 5700 (100), Nestle Pakistan with price per share of 8700 (90) and Siemens Pak share of 1498.92 (56.18).
The top three losers were Rafhan Maize with price per share of 8000 (-197.50), Sanofi-Aventis with price per share of 2462.50 (-72) and Wyeth Pak Ltd per share of 4731.17 (-59.08).
Earlier, the stocks opened negative and shed 131.24 points to drop to 47078.82 points level in early trading. The bearish note further deepened in the Pakistan Stock Exchange till midday as the benchmark 100-index shed 537.49 points to reach 46672.57 points level after losing 47,000 mark.
On Tuesday, the PSX index surged to new highs and touched highest level of 47,210 points by gaining 271.47 points or (0.58%).
HBL and UBL led the index by contributing 243 points to the gain. After a gap of almost 11 years, local index closed in green for 13 consecutive sessions. Intraday rally was witnessed in the banking sector, as it gained to close 2.8 percent higher than its previous day close. HBL (rose 5%) and UBL (3.47%) were major index movers of the aforementioned sector. Profit taking was witnessed in the E&P sector on the back of nominal decline in crude oil prices, as it lost value to trade below $52/bl level. POL (slipped 2.17%) and OGDC (1.21%) were major losers of the aforementioned sector.
HUBC (up 3.66%) gained for the third consecutive trading session to close in the green zone on the back of extension in the financial closing and Implementation Agreement (IA) for its 660x2MW imported coal based power plant, stated an analyst at JS Global. Overall, volumes increased by 30 percent to 450 million shares, while value rose by 5.6 percent to Rs21.7 billion/$207 million. DSL was the volume leader with 58 million shares traded.
