KARACHI: Pakistan equity market closed week lower on Friday as KSE-100 index gained to make an intraday high of +172 points during the initial hours of the day. However, on account of political noise and foreign selling, the index plummeted to close 261 points below Thursday’s closing, at 43,595 points level, down 261 points. Market also witnessed sluggish volumes in Friday’s trading session, totaling to 165 million shares. Dewan Cement Limited (DCL) gaining 0.87 percent from the cement sector led the market in terms of volumes with 14 million shares changing hands. Friday’s major laggards were HUBC with 2.34 percent decline, Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Limited (SNGP) with 3.96 percent decline, and Lucky Cement with 1.02 percent decline as they cumulatively wiped away 74 points from the index. On the flipside, Habib Bank limited (HBL) gaining 0.70 percent, Sui Southern Gas Company Limited (SSGC) gaining 4.17 percent and United Bank Limited (UBL) gaining 0.44 percent cumulatively contributed 35 points to the index. On the economic front, trade deficit in April-2018 clocked in down 3 percent year-on-year (YoY) where exports went up 19 percent YoY while imports urged by 3 percent YoY as trade deficit was up 14 percent YoY in 10 months of Fiscal ear 2017-18 (FY18) to US$30.245 billion (exports up 14% YoY, imports up 14% YoY). On sector-wise front, cement sector came under pressure where Chitral Cement losing 1.08 percent, Fauji Cement Company Limited (FCCL) losing 1.10 percent, LUCK losing 1.02 percent and DG Khan Cement losing 0.80 percent lost value to close in the red zone. “We expect market to exhibit volatility in the coming sessions due to overall political ambiguities and lack of positive triggers in the market”, said an equity analyst Maaz Mulla. KSE All Share closed down 169 points while KSE-30 shed 129 points, Similarly, KMI All Share went down by 147 points and KMI-30 dropped 654 points. Total volume traded was approximately 164 million in KSE-All-Share Index, 86 million in KSE-100 Index, 60 million in KSE-30 Index, 89 million in KMI-All-Share Index and 57 million in KMI-30 Index..A total of 92 scrips gained whereas 242 scrips lost during the trading hours. A total of 25 scrips remained unchanged. The highest volume trading sector in KSE All Share Index was “Cement”. Published in Daily Times, May 12th 2018.