KARACHI: The Pakistan Stock Exchange Tuesday witnessed bearish note mainly due to Lahore blast, which claimed at least 15 lives including top police officials. The benchmark 100-index shed 197.72 points to reach 49767.91 points level at closing.
The stocks recorded the highest trading level of 50093.38 points and lowest level of 49845.85 points, with the volume of over 3543.06 million shares and value of Rs 17.21 billion. As many as 391 companies were active; of which 125 advanced, 251 declined and 15 remained unchanged.
Aisha Steel Mill was the volume leader with 40.87 million shares, gaining Rs 0.10 to finish at Rs 27.31. It was followed by Power Cement with 37.17 million shares, adding Rs 0.09 to end at Rs 37.17 and K-Electric with 23.57 million shares, shedding Rs 0.05 to close at Rs 10.09.
The top three gainers were Rafhan Maize with price per share of 7595 (89), Shell Pakistan with price per share of 617.01 (29.38) and Hinopak Motor Ins share of 1675.26 (23.26).
The top three losers were Wyeth Pak Ltd with price per share of 4263.34 (-206.65), Sanofi-Aventis with price per share of 2651.89 (-84.11) and Pak Tobacco per share of 1093.25 (-32.75).
Earlier, the PSX benchmark 100-index shed 90.12 points to reach 49875.51 points level in early trading. The PSX remained bearish till midday after witnessing some fluctuation in trading and shed 80 points to drop to 49885.75 points level.
On Monday, the positivity prevailed at PSX for most part of the first trading day as the index gained to make an intraday high of 397 points but pressure was witnessed in the market during the latter hours as index fell to close on a flat note by gaining around 40 points (up 0.08%).
ISL, INIL and ASL were among the major losers of the aforementioned sector, as they lost value to close on their respective lower circuits. OGDC (rose 1.15%), POL (1.58%) and PPL (0.54%) in the E&P sector gained to close in the green zone, as crude oil surged to trade comfortably above $53.5/bbl for most part of the day. Dost Steels was the volume leader with 32 million traded shares. Overall, volumes increased by 2.2 percent to 362 million shares, while traded value rose by 8.6 percent to Rs18.8 billion.