RECORDER REPORT

KARACHI: A mixed trend prevailed on Pakistan Stock Exchange Thursday. The KSE-100 index moving between 48,091.82 points intra-day high and 47,367.59 points intra-day low, closed at 47,442.73 points, down 165.91 points.

Foreign investors remained net sellers of shares worth $9.7 million. Daily trading volumes increased to 355.322 million shares as compared to 255.543 million shares traded Wednesday.

The market capitalization decreased by Rs 16 billion to Rs 9.473 trillion. Out of total 350 active scrips, 183 closed in positive, 147 in negative while the value of 20 stocks remained unchanged.

Power Cement (R) was the volume leader with 109.863 million shares. However, it lost Rs 0.15 to close at Rs 0.06 followed by K-Electric that declined by Rs 0.17 to close at Rs 6.94 with 37.922 million shares. Engro Polymer gained Rs 0.20 to close at Rs 39.07 with 22.108 million shares.

Exide Pak and Service Industries were the top gainers with Rs 47.50 and Rs 38.98, respectively to close at Rs 997.50 and Rs 1,395.00. Bata Pak and Sapphire Textile were the top losers with Rs 120.00 and Rs 104.72, respectively to close at Rs 3,500.00 and Rs 1,990.45.

Arhum Ghous at JS Global Capital said the market started on a negative note making an intraday low of 239 points. However, during the day the market did witness positivity and made an intraday high of 480 points, selling pressure in the last hour of the trading session resulted in negativity, where market closed at 47,443 level, 166 points down. Positive contribution to the index came from KOHC (up 2.96 percent), ATRL (up 2.44 percent), POL (up 1.05 percent) as they cumulatively contributed 23 points to the index. On the flipside, major laggards included UBL (down 3.27 percent), LUCK (down 2.93 percent) and OGDC (down 1.56 percent). Banking sector heavyweights showed mix investor sentiments with UBL (down 3.27 percent) closing in the red zone while HBL (up 0.46 percent), NBP (up 0.35 percent) and ABL (up 0.74 percent) closed in the green zone. Total contribution from the banking sector was negative 67 points to the KSE-100 index. In E&P sector OGDC (down 1.56 percent) and PPL (down 1.64 percent) lost value to close in the red zone. SAZEW (up 5.00 percent) in auto sector closed on its upper circuit on back of the news related to export of rickshaws to Japan.

An analyst at Topline Securities said trading at the bourse remained choppy, the market opened gap down with oil majors under pressure as crude prices sank nearly two dollars overnight (WTI trading around $44.5/bbl) as EIA data indicated a surprise build in Gasoline stocks. The market quickly recovered, posting a high of 48,088 points (up 480/1.0 percent), which presented an opportunity for the bears. Around an hour and a half into the PM’s JIT appearance, all hell broke lose with the index selling-off around 710 points within the span of 45minuts.