Daily Times

The Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) turned bearish on Monday due to expected downgrading of Pakistan from Emerging Market Index to Frontier Market Index, with the benchmark KSE-100 Index shedding 601.01 (-1.26 points) to close at 47,002.35 points.

The market opened on a negative note and remained in the red zone throughout the session that was fuelled by consistent profit booking activity. The Index traded in a range of 763.5 points, showing an intraday high of 47,665.8 and a low of 46,902.3.

Among other indices, the KSE All Share Index shed 372.06 points (-1.14 percent) to close at 32,191.58 points, while All Share Islamic Index shed 311.29 points (-1.33 percent) to close at 23,023.67 points.

A total of 384 companies traded shares in the stock exchange, out of them shares of 77 closed up, shares of 282 closed down while shares of 25 companies remained unchanged.

The overall market volumes decreased by 106.30 million to 655.12 million shares. The number of total trades decreased by 18,964 to 170,499, while value traded decreased by Rs2.89 billion to Rs18.86 billion. The market cap decreased by Rs92.63 billion.

Among scrips, WTL topped the volumes with 97.7 million shares, followed by BYCO (52.4 million) and JSCLR1 (50.3 million). Stocks that contributed significantly to the volumes include WTL, BYCO, JSCLR1, KEL and TREET, which formed 39 percent of total volumes.

Sector wise, the index was let down by commercial banks with 191 points, cement with 106 points, oil & gas marketing companies with 53 points, oil & gas exploration companies with 52 points and textile composite with 45 points. The most points taken off the index were by HBL which stripped the index of 69 points followed by LUCK with 51 points, UBL with 43 points, HUBC with 33 points and MCB with 24 points.

The sectors propping up the index were technology & communication with 23 points, paper & board with 10 points, tobacco with 7 points, automobile parts & accessories with 6 points and cable & electrical goods with 3 points. The most points added to the index were by TRG which contributed 22 points followed by ABOT with 10 points, THALL with 8 points, ABL with 8 points and PKGS with 8 points.

Analysts at Arif Habib Limited said that the market dipped 701 points during the session and closed the session -601 points. Financial year end closing for the institutional investors (banks and mutual funds) prompted profit booking, especially in the aftermath of MSCI downgrade from Emerging Market to Frontier Market which can possibly result in selling from foreign corporates. Selling pressure was witnessed across the board with emphasis on cement, banks and E&P sectors, they further said.