Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) remained bearish for the fifth consecutive day on Friday amid absence of positive triggers, with the benchmark KSE-100 Index shedding 99.60 points (-0.22 percent) to close at 45,553.02 points. The market opened on a positive note but remained range-bound and volatile. The indices remained mostly in green territory for the first two hour trading and later, the bears took charge of the market till the end of the session. Overall, the market witessed all five sessions of the week finishing in red and the benchmark index plunged by 1,048.52 points (-2.25 percent) to 45,553.02 points from 46,601.54 points during the week. The market witessed selling pressure amid rising commodity prices, rising treasury-bill yields and ongoing economic challenges. In Wednesday’s T–bill auction, the government raised Rs568 billion against the target of Rs600 billion. Against the last auction, the 3M, 6M and 12M cutoff yields increased by 70bps, 60bps and 55bps, respectively, to 13.5 percent, 13.84 percent and 13.84 percent. The KSE-100 Index moved in a range of 269.78 points, showing an intraday high of 45,774.85 and a low of 45,505.07 points. Among other indices, the KSE All Share Index shed 41.65 points (-0.13 percent) to close at 31,013.92 points, while KMI All Share Islamic Index gained 33.21 points (+0.15 percent) to close at 22,566.02 points. A total of 322 companies traded shares in the stock exchange, out of them shares of 164 closed up, shares of 136 closed down while shares of 22 companies remained unchanged. Out of 92 traded companies in the KSE-100 Index, 42 closed up and 50 closed down. The overall market volumes increased by 31.13 million to 217.57 million shares. Total volumes traded for the KSE-100 Index decreased by 8.77 million to 89.52 million shares. The number of total trades decreased by 2,801 to 77,215, while the value traded decreased by Rs0.32 billion to Rs5.30 billion. Overall market capitalisation decreased by Rs10.24 billion. Among scrips, CNERGY topped the volumes with 23.65 million shares, followed by HUML (23.61 million) and LOTCHEM (19.59 million). Stocks that contributed significantly to the volumes included CNERGY, HUML, LOTCHEM, TPLP, and GGL, which formed over 44 percent of total volumes. In terms of rupee, RMPL remained the top gainer and witessed an increase of Rs350 (+3.06 percent) per share, closing at Rs11,800. The runner-up remained NESTLE, the share price of which climbed up by Rs117.13 (+2.13 percent) to Rs5,618.13. PSEL remained the top loser in terms of rupee and witessed a decrease of Rs125.25 (-7.5 percent) per share, closing at Rs1,544.75, followed by COLG, the share price of which declined by Rs110 (-4.71 percent) to close at Rs2,225 per share. The sectors taking the index towards the south were miscellaneous (67 points), chemical (31 points), fertilizer (26 points), commercial banks (25 points) and power generation & distribution (21 points). The most points taken off the index were by PSEL (66 points), KAPCO (21 points), COLG (20 points), PAKT (17 points) and DAWH (16 points). The sectors taking the index towards the north were oil & gas exploration companies (54 points), technology & communication (31 points), textile composite (18 points), food & personal care products (13 points) and oil & gas marketing companies (8 points). The most points added to the index were by POL (20 points), PPL (19 points), SYS and OGDC (16 points each) and TRG (15 points).