KARACHI: The stock market ended down 15 points on Tuesday despite last hour buying activities. The benchmark KSE-100 index of Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) closed at 33,885 points as against 33,900 points showing a decline of 15 points.
Analysts at Arif Habib Limited said that the market improved slightly and although the index oscillated between -209 points and +167 points (~350 points).
Last half hour of trading, as has been the case lately, was again interesting which saw buying activity in index drivers such as ENGRO, but also saw buying in SEARL, ABL that pulled up the index. Cement sector led the volumes table with 17.6 million shares, followed by Power (11 million) and Banks (8.8 million).
Scrip wise activity shows KEL topping the volumes with 7 million shares followed by UNITY and MLCF.
Cement sector has seen attrition since past week and today was no different which saw key cement scrips trading at lower circuits for instance PIOC, MLCF, DGKC etc. Collectively, Banks and E&P scrips performed well today, whereas O&GMCs (PSO), and Cement contributed to the downside.
Sectors contributing to the performance include E&P (+117 points), Banks (+80 points), Power (+30 points), O&GMCs (-64 points), Cement (-39 points), Fertilizer (-25 points), Pharma (-20 points), Textile (-20 points).
Volumes registered a slight decline of 13 percent DoD to reach 105.7 million as against 121.2 million. Average traded value also declined by 19 percent to reach US$ 30.3 million as against US$ 37.5 million.
Stocks that contributed significantly to the volumes include KEL, UNITY, MLCF, PIBTL and TRG, which formed 28 percent of total volumes.
Stocks that contributed positively include PPL (+68 points), HUBC (+27 points), POL (+27 points), UBL (+23 points) and MCB (+19pt). Stocks that contributed negatively include PSO (-30 points), DAWH (-27 points), DGKC (-15 points), COLG (-12 points) and FFC (-10 points).
