Daily Times

Stocks at Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) were hammered on the first trading day of the week as the index continued to lose ground to selling pressure over rising political uncertainty and negative economic indicators.

However, pending futures open positions led to additional selling pressure on Monday. Irfan Saeed, Senior Vice president, BMA Capital Management Limited, said open positions on the last trading of the roll-over week stood at a gargantuan Rs.31 billion, and since Friday’s trading hours were cut short, investors were unable to square their positions. This situation led to heavy offloading of the equities on Monday, he noted.

On Monday, the benchmark KSE-100 opened on a negative note and touched intra-day low at 43,630.07 level after losing 632.28 points, but reversing its trajectory the index pared some early losses and touched intra-day high at 44,326.01 level after it gained 63 points. However, the index clocked at 44,076.20 level by the closing bell after posting a 186.15 points loss.

During the session Market Capital decreased by Rs.92.67 billion, while total value traded increased by 0.16 billion to Rs.13.77 billion.

The volume at KSE-100 receded from 153.9 million shares recorded in the previous session to 125.27 million shares, whereas the all-share volume also declined from 293.7 million shares from the previous session to 238.44 million shares.

The volume chart was led by Unity Foods, followed by Telecard Limited and Ghani Global Limited. The scrips exchanged 36.36 million, 25.35 million and 23.14 million shares, respectively.

According to the National Clearing Company of Pakistan Limited (NCCPL) foreign investors were net buyers of $54,000 worth of equities.

Among local investors, Other organizations and Companies led the buying chart, which mopped up $3.5 million, and $2.4 million worth of equities.

However, Individuals, Insurance Companies and Brokers led the selling chart and offloaded $3.5 million, $1.4 million and $1.2 million worth of equities.

During the session, sectors which dented the index were Technology & Communication with 89 points, Textile Composite with 58 points, Cement with 33 points, Power Generation & Distribution with 29 points and Refinery with 12 points. Among the scrips,The most points taken off the index was by TRG Pakistan which stripped the index of 130 points followed by Hub Power Company with 28 points, Nishat Mills Limited with 23 points, Azgard Nine Limited with 16 points and Lucky Cement Limited with 15 points.

However, the sectors which lifted the index were Food & Personal Care Products with 25 points, Commercial Banks with 25 points, Fertilizer with 18 points, Tobacco with 12 points and Paper & Board with 1 point. Among the scrips, the most points added to the index was by Systems Limited which contributed 41 points followed by Habib Bank Limited with 17 points, Unity Foods with 16 points, Kohinoor textiles Mills Limited with 13 points and Fauji Fertilizer Company with 13 points.