KARACHI: The three-day winning streak at the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) came to an end on Friday, with the benchmark index succumbing to selling pressure amid range-bound activity.
“The stock market opened on a negative note and maintained the bearish momentum during the first half of the session. However, buying activity in banking, refinery and technology sectors helped the index recover some ground post interval,” a report issued by Arif Habib Ltd read. “E&P and cement stocks observed selling pressure primarily due to concerns on slow cement despatches as well as staid crude prices.”
MARKET SUMMARY
The benchmark KSE-100 remained in the red for almost the entire session, registering its intraday low at 40,753.30 after losing 277.73 points. It closed lower by 223.94 points at 40,807.09.
Among other indices, the KMI-30 Index plunged 629.57 points to end at 65,731.71, while the KSE All Share Index dropped 76.69 points, settling at 28,719.60.
The overall market volumes increased from 389.17 million shares in the previous session to 397.25 million shares (+2pc). Average traded value, however, declined by 18pc, from $100.5 million to $82.5 million. Unity Foods Ltd (UNITY +2.50pc), TRG Pakistan Ltd (TRG +6.56pc) and K-Electric Ltd (KEL +0.27pc) led the volume chart, exchanging 53.46 million, 45.96 million and 23.11 million shares, respectively.
Sectors that dragged the benchmark index lower included oil & gas exploration (-78.69 points), cement (-50.28 points) and fertilizer (-36.32 points). Among the companies, Pak Petroleum Ltd (PPL -31.53 points), Lucky Cement Ltd (LUCK -27.08 points) and Oil and Gas Development Company Ltd (OGDC -23.15 points) dented the index the most.
Shedding 1.61pc from its cumulative market capitalization, the oil & gas exploration sector emerged as the market’s weakest link, with OGDC (-1.61pc), Mari Petroleum Company Ltd (MARI -1.52pc), PPL (-2.33pc) and Pakistan Oilfields Ltd (POL -1.40pc) closing in the negative.
