RECORDER REPORT

KARACHI: Pakistan Stock Exchange Monday witnessed a bearish trend with extremely low volumes as investors preferred to remain on the sidelines due to prevailing political uncertainty. BRIndex100 lost 40.74 points or 1.0 percent to close at 4,046.77 points. BRIndex100 touched intraday high of 4,093.93 and intraday low of 4,044.41 points. Volumes stood at 38.062 million shares.

BRIndex30 decreased by 184.16 points or 0.91 percent to 20,075.56 points with a turnover of 25.578 million shares.

The benchmark KSE-100 index declined by 261.92 points to 38,383.98 points. Trading activity remained extremely low as daily volumes declined to 50.045 million shares as compared to 139.767 million shares traded Friday.

The market capitalization decreased by Rs 42 billion to Rs 8.200 trillion. Out of total 326 active scrips, 237 closed in negative, only 75 in positive while the value of 14 stocks remained unchanged.

TRG Pak was the volume leader with 4.358 million shares. However, it declined by Rs 1.52 to close at Rs 29.05 followed by Azgard Nine that gained Re 0.02 to close at Rs 14.60 with 3.396 million shares. Colgate Palmolive and Bhanero Textile were the top gainers with Rs 109.00 and Rs 31.50, respectively to close at Rs 2,750.00 and Rs 661.51. Shield Corporation and Sanofi-Aventis were the top losers with Rs 17.67 and Rs 16.99, respectively to close at Rs 601.33 and Rs 1,206.01.

BR Commercial Banks Index lost 30.17 points or 0.4 percent to close at 7,441.56 points with total turnover of 4.940 million shares.

BR Cement Index decreased by 68.49 points or 1.51 percent to close at 4,481.21 points with 4.219 million shares.

BR Oil and Gas Index declined by 43.25 points or 0.89 percent to close at 4,833.19 points with 2.740 million shares.

BR Tech. & Comm. Index closed at 1,050.78 points, down 31.3 points or 2.89 percent with 7.448 million shares.

BR Power Generation and Distribution Index lost 53.1 points or 0.86 percent to close at 6,123.79 points with 2.429 million shares.

Maaz Mulla at JS Global Capital said that political noise was at a high decibel. Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi’s announcement regarding elections date did not suffice to remove investors’ jitters. Brief participation from the institutional side was seen in E&P Sector where POL (down 0.69 percent), PPL (down 1.24 percent) and OGDC (down 0.41 percent) closed in the red. Pressure was seen in the Cement sector, where MLCF (down 0.97 percent), FCCL (down 2.15 percent), DGKC (down 1.98 percent) and LUCK (down 1.98 percent) were major laggards.

An analyst at Topline Securities said that Pakistan market witnessed its lowest trading activity since July 2014, as investors preferred to remain on the sidelines due to prevailing political uncertainty while year-end slumber took over the market participants. In absence of any triggers, investors adopted a cautious stance to wait out on resolution of key political issues before taking any fresh position, thereby forcing the market to close lower at 38,383, down 0.68 percent. Most of the activity was concentrated in the retail favorites with volume chart lead by third-tier stocks.

Top index point decliners were PPL (down 1.2 percent), LUCK (down 2 percent), ENGRO (down 1.4 percent), HBL (down 0.7 percent) and FFC (down 1.4 percent) that withheld 102 points while stocks including FATIMA (up 4.9 percent) COLG (up 4.1 percent), PGF (up 5.0 percent), EFUG (up 3.3 percent) and BAFL (up 1.4 percent) added 56 points. On the sector front; Cement, E&P and fertilizer sectors cumulatively took away 135.7 points. On the flip side Chemical and paper board sectors added a total of 10.8 points.