Daily Times

After a bullish session, bearish sentiments surrounded the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) amid foreign investors offloaded equity worth $3.39 million.

Trading started on slightly positive note, but soon yielded to selling pressures on most sectors which sent the index reeling down to intra-day low by 357.22 points.

KSE 100 Index benchmark touched its intraday low of 31,472.02. The index ended lower by 264.03 points at 31,565.21. The KMI-30 Index lost 309.64 points to end the day at 50,121.27, while the KSE All Share Index dropped 134.13 points, closing the day at 23,108.36

The sectors that drove the KSE 100 Index south included the banking sector (-108.18 points), power generation and distribution sector (-47.97 points) and oil and gas exploration sector (-33.54 points).

The overall volumes improved from 88.81 million in the preceding session to 103.66 million. K-Electric Limited (KEL +1.53pc) turned out to be the volume leader of the day, followed by Worldcall Telecom (WTL +16.13pc) and Pakistan State Oil Company Limited (PSO -0.17pc). The scripts had traded 14.90 million, 12.45 million and 6.96 million shares respectively.

Pak Petroleum Limited announced a final cash dividend of Rs 2 along with 20pc bonus shares. Sales increased by 29.86pc YoY, while earnings per share improved from Rs 20.15 in FY18 to Rs 27.18 in FY19.

A final cash dividend of Rs 5 per share, along with 20pc bonus shares, was also declared by Pakistan State Oil Company Limited as it announced the financial results for FY19. The Sales grew by 8.51pc but the company reported a decline in gross profit margin by -9.13pc. The financial cost increased by a gargantuan 74.48pc, which lowered the earnings per share by 31.53pc.

In a notification to the exchange, the management of Hascol Petroleum Limited (HASCOL -2.08pc) announced that the company’s subsidiary, Hascol Lubricants (Pvt) Ltd, has received a licence from the Oil and Regulatory Authority (OGRA) to start commercial operations of its lube oil blending plant. The plant has a capacity of 40,000 metric tonnes per annum.