RECORDER REPORT
KARACHI: Despite foreign buying, Pakistan Stock Exchange Monday witnessed a declining trend on fourth consecutive session due to continuous selling by local investors.
BRIndex100 lost 83.21 points or 1.87 percent to close at 4,371.22 points. BRIndex-100 touched intraday high of 4,484.05 and intraday low of 4,360.85 points. Volumes stood at 141.655 million shares.
BRIndex30 decreased by 426.78 points or 1.94 percent to close at 21,579.96 points with a turnover of 109.354 million shares.
The benchmark KSE-100 index declined by 659.15 points or 1.58 percent to close at 40,978.23 points. Trading activity also remained low as daily volumes decreased to 166.648 million shares.
Foreign investors emerged net buyers of shares worth $1.9 million. The market capitalization declined by Rs 108 billion to Rs 8.431 trillion. Out of total 362 active scrips, 283 closed in negative, only 58 in positive while the value of 21 stocks remained unchanged.
K-Electric was the volume leader with 18.652 million shares. However, it lost Re 0.05 to close at Rs 5.27 followed by Bank of Punjab that decreased by Re 0.29 to close at Rs 12.15 with 11.177 million shares.
Rafhan Maize and Colgate Palmolive were the top gainers with Rs 324.40 and Rs 98.00, respectively to close at Rs 7,750.00 and Rs 3,197.00. Unilever Foods and Sanofi-Aventis were the top losers with Rs 415.00 and Rs 56.60, respectively to close at Rs 7,885.00 and Rs 1,119.40.
BR Commercial Banks Index gained 34.89 points or 0.41 percent to close at Rs 8,527.61 points with total turnover of 22.983 million shares.
BR Cement Index declined by 181.82 points or 3.95 percent to close at 4,424.70 points with 13.590 million shares.
BR Oil and Gas Index decreased by 111.21 points or 2.1 percent to close at 5,177.80 points with 11.897 million shares.
BR Tech. & Comm. Index lost 35.92 points or 3.16 percent to close at 1,102.43 points with 8.901 million shares.
BR Power Generation and Distribution Index closed at 5,800.65 points, down 90.02 points or 1.53 percent with 21.532 million shares.
An analyst at Topline Securities said that Pakistan equities slumped hard for the fourth consecutive session, stretching total index loss to around 2,700 points or
6.2 percent, closing below 41,000 level at 40,978 level. To note, market has wiped out nearly all gains of 2018, where similar levels were seen on January 01, 2018 when KSE-100 index closed below 41,000 index level.
The session was dented by news related to proposed rise in gas prices by 30 percent from July 01, 2018. Tracing this event, energy intensive industries (mainly gas based) like Fertilizers, Chemicals, Steels, and Textiles closed negative. Moreover, other key factors, which are affecting the market, are upcoming decision of Pakistan’s inclusion in grey/black list by FATF, depleting FX reserves and final verdict of accountability/apex court over panama scandal.
