The Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) tumbled on Wednesday owing to the bill moved in the US Senate to impose sanctions on Afghan Taliban, with the benchmark KSE-100 Index shedding 908.19 points (-2.01 percent) to close at 44,366.74 points.
The market opened on a negative note but turned to positive and gained around 67 points before going for a free fall and shed over 1,300 points. However, the mid-day trading helped the index recover some of the losses. The KSE-100 Index moved in a range of 1,367.2 points, showing an intraday high of 45,342.2 points and a low of 43,975 points.
Among other indices, the KSE All Share Index shed 499.4 points (-1.62 percent) to close at 30,262.8 points, while All Share Islamic Index shed 448.29 points (-2.05 percent) to close at 21,464.97 points.
A total of 383 companies traded shares in the stock exchange, out of them shares of 58 closed up, shares of 311 closed down while shares of 14 companies remained unchanged. Out of 98 traded companies in the KSE-100 Index, four closed up, 93 closed down, and one remained unchanged.
The overall market volumes increased by 103.90 million to 468.76 million shares. Total volume traded for the KSE-100 Index was 208.74 million shares. The number of total trades increased by 37,498 to 169,031, while the value traded increased by Rs2.37 billion to Rs16.40 billion. The market capitalisation increased by Rs127.08 billion.
Among scrips, TELE topped the volumes with 52.43 million shares, followed by WTL (51.19 million) and DCR (36.02 million). Stocks that contributed significantly to the volumes include TELE, WTL, DCR, BYCO and ANL, which formed 43 percent of total volumes.
Sector-wise, the index was let down by commercial banks with 172 points, technology & communication with 128 points, cement with 100 points, pharmaceuticals with 65 points and fertilizer with 58 points. The most points taken off the index was by TRG which stripped the index of 88 points followed by MCB with 61 points, SEARL with 35 points, SYS with 35 points and LUCK with 35 points.
The sectors propping up the index was tobacco, which added 19 points. The most points added to the index was by PAKT which contributed 19 points followed by SCBPL with 3 points and GLAXO with one point.
Analysts at Arif Habib Limited said after the initial uptick of 67 points carrying positive sentiment from Tuesday, the market took a nosedive due to concerns on the foreign policy front where the US senators proposed sanctions on the Taliban and its supporters that had PSX investors worry about the fate of relations with the US.
Resultantly, the index tumbled around 1,300 points during intraday trading. Selling was observed across the board with a major decline in technology, banks, E&P, O&GMCs and fertilizer sectors.
According to Topline Securities, “With today’s KSE-100 index closing, the index is so far 6 percent down in September 2021. If the trend continues tomorrow this will be the highest monthly fall after March 2020 where the index declined by 23 percent due to Covid-19.”
