KARACHI: The Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) remained bearish on the first day of new trading week as the benchmark 100-index shed 216.24 points to drop to 40032.17 level.
The stocks recorded the highest trading level of 40248.41 points and lowest level of 39932.93 points, with the volume of 111 million shares and value of Rs4.25 billion. As many as 340 companies were active; of which 136 advanced, 179 declined and 25 remained unchanged.
K-Electric was the volume leader with 40 million shares, adding Rs0.25 to reach Rs6.26. It was followed by TRG Pak Ltd with 12.53 million shares, gaining Rs1.78 to end at Rs37.39 and WorldCall Telecom with 6.68 million shares, shedding Rs0.01 to close at Rs3.
The top three gainers were Nestle Pakistan with price per share of 10850 (400), Rafhan Maize with price per share of 6988.99 (288.99) and Unilever Foods of 7500 (255).
The top three losers were Service Ind .Ltd with price per share of 770.20 (-29.80), Sapphire Tex with price per share of 1745.01 (-28.84) and Hinopak Motor share of 1043.78 (-25.21).
The stocks started new week on negative note after shedding 123 points to reach 40125 level in early trading. The PSX lost 40,000 mark after losing 304 point to reach 39944 level till midday.
Last week, the political unrest continued to shake market participants with KSE-100 index closing down 1.5 percent WoW. The government’s decision to shut furnace oil (FO) based power plants also affected performance of OMCs (down 4.1 percent WoW) and refineries (-2.7 percent WoW) sectors, wiping out 218 points from the index.
As a result, across the board pressure was seen in other sectors as well such as; Fertilisers (down 1.3 percent WoW) and Cements (down 1.5 percent WoW). As a result of overall uncertain market outlook, Mutual Funds and Foreign Investors continued to offload positions with net selling of $3.5 million and $6.2 million worth of equities, respectively. Some improvement in activity was seen with overall average volumes traded increasing by 5.8 percent WoW to 112 million shares but majorly remained concentrated in low-mid market cap stocks (like K-Electric) due to which average traded value declined by 7.9 percent WoW.
During the last week, KSE100 Index lost 596 points to close at 40,248 points, amid lack of triggers and continued political uncertainty. Most of the major sectors such as commercial banks (-1.5 percent WoW), cements (-1.4 percent WoW), chemicals (-0.9 percent WoW), oil & gas (-0.8 percent WoW) and food producers (-8.2 percent WoW) ended the week in the red zone, whereas electricity (+1.9 percent WoW), electrical and electronic goods (+8.9 percent WoW) and illiquid tobacco (+11.9 percent WoW) gained during the week. Foreign investors remained net sellers during the week offloading $6.3 million worth of scrips. Most of this selling was concentrated in cements ($3.7m) and commercial banks (4.3m). This was offset to some extent by buying in oil & gas (5.1m).