KARACHI: The Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) started week on negative note as the benchmark KSE-100 Index plunged 293 points to close at 43,515 points.
The benchmark showed some positive activity in the first few minutes of the session to hit a day’s high of 43,900 points. However, the benchmark could not sustain the momentum and adopted a negative trend for the rest of the session. It hit a day’s low of 43,461 points near the end of the session. In all, 215.3 million shares worth Rs7.9 billion changed hands over the day.
Overall, textile scrips dominated trading with 38.2m shares traded, while the chemical and communication sectors followed with 24.9m and 19.6m shares changing hands.
On Friday, the stock market on the last trading day of the week closed positive with benchmark KSE100 Index settling at 43,809 levels, up by 128 points or 0.3 percent. The bourse remained in the red zone in the first half of the trading session, making a low of -393 points.
On the economic front, SBP’s total liquid forex reserves decline by $172 million to $19.18 billon. Moreover, China has agreed to accommodate the demands of Pakistani exporters in the amended Free Trade Agreement (FTA), which is expected to be signed in March according to the Ministry of Commerce. Traded volumes plunged by 8 percent DoD to 226 million shares while value traded dropped to $83 million. Top volume stocks were ANL (+5.59 percent), ASL (+3.37 percent), FFL (+5 percent), LOTCHEM (+1.66 percent) and TRG (+2.54 percent).
In the E&P sector, OGDC (-0.15 percent) and PPL (-0.61 percent) came under the hammer as the global oil prices fell for the sixth day due to concerns about a sharp rise in global supplies.
