RECORDER REPORT
KARACHI: Pakistan Stock Exchange Tuesday remained under pressure due to selling by local and foreign investors.
BRIndex100 lost 30.56 points or 0.64 percent to close at 4,749.39 points. BRIndex100 touched intraday high of 4,800.18 and intraday low of 4,731.83 points. Volumes stood at 249.372 million shares.
BRIndex30 decreased by 173.93 points or 0.71 percent to 24,484.40 points with a turnover of 154.438 million shares.
The benchmark KSE-100 index declined by 224.19 points to 44,233.11 points. Due to selling pressure, daily trading volumes increased to 282.480 million shares as compared to 192.333 million shares traded Monday.
Foreign investors remained net sellers of shares worth $0.7 million. The market capitalization decreased by Rs 20 billion to Rs 9.162 trillion. Out of total 366 active scrips, 207 closed in negative, 141 in positive while the value of 18 stocks remained unchanged.
WorldCall Telecom was the volume leader with 35.389 million shares. However, it lost Re 0.20 to close at Rs 2.57 followed by Fauji Foods that gained Re 0.87 to close at Rs 19.98 with 25.291 million shares.
Wyeth Pak and Sapphire Fiber were the top gainers with Rs 44.29 and Rs 34.02, respectively to close at Rs 1,794.29 and Rs 884.00. Khyber Tobacco and Service Ind. were the top losers with Rs 49.63 and Rs 46.65, respectively to close at Rs 987.86 and Rs 943.35.
BR Commercial Banks Index declined by 170.44 points or 1.86 percent to close at 8,989.14 points with total turnover of 25.118 million shares.
BR Cement Index lost 49.18 points or 0.81 percent to close at 6,055.93 points with 18.510 million shares.
BR Oil and Gas Index gained 1.9 points or 0.04 percent to close at 5,248.08 points with 5.597 million shares.
BR Tech. & Comm. Index closed at 1,201.18 points, down 2.14 points or 0.18 with 47.127 million shares.
BR Power Generation and Distribution Index gained 12.19 points or 0.19 percent to close at 6,600.54 points with 5.091 million shares.
Maaz Mulla at JS Global Capital said that the PSX witnessed a lackluster session, where the benchmark KSE-100 index made an intraday high of plus 158 points and an intraday low of minus 376 points to close at 44,233, down 224 points. WTL (down 7.22 percent) led the volumes with more than 35 million shares exchanging hands on back of news that the stock has been placed in the defaulter counter segment.
Banking sector led the declining trend as heavyweight stocks such as NBP (down 1.05 percent), HBL (down 3.92 percent), UBL (down 3.26 percent) and MCB (down 1.41 percent) witnessed profit-taking, cumulatively dragging the index down by 225 points. Investors’ interest was witnessed in the steel sector as ASL (up 3.47 percent), DSL (up 3.04 percent) and ISL (up 0.61 percent) closed in the green. FFC (up 2.37 percent) from the fertilizer sector declared its result for 2017, where the company posted an EPS of Rs 8.72 and DPS of Rs3.0, both of which came in line with our expectations.
