Daily Times

KARACHI: Pakistan equities on Wednesday witnessed massive sell-off ahead of the MSCI Emerging Markets upgrade as the benchmark KSE 100 index was pushed 861.59 notches down at 50,591.57 points

A great step ahead for Pakistan Capital markets was however greeted with red as benchmark KSE100 index tanked by 1.7% primarily on profit-taking in EM stocks. Against expectation of a few market players, most FII transition flows went through off-market (NDM) with $273 million worth exchanging hands while possibly residuals flooding the system as $508 million traded on PSX, highest since mid of 2008, said Ali Raza, analyst at Elixir Securities.

Reported institutional selling in late trading triggered local sell-off with investors off-loading both in regular and post-close session, he added.

However, the late session interest in selected blue chip oil and banking stocks supported the market to close above session’s low. Budgetary measures such as capital gains taxes, higher dividend taxes played a catalyst role in the fall.

On Wednesday 274.37 million shares changed hands while the trading value of the traded shares was recorded at Rs 53 billion.

On the volume leader board Oil and Gas Development Company with 26.98 million shares stood at the top followed by Engro Corp with 23.42 million shares, K-Electric 21.46 million, United BankXD with 21.09 million and, Fauji Cement 20.85 million.

Shares of 382 companies were traded out of which 109 closed in green, 248 in red while 25 remained unchanged.

“We see today’s trading data namely foreigners activity to guide direction in days ahead with MSCI EM names and wider market possibly taking a breather and consolidating near 50,000 level”, Raza said.