The Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) witnessed another bearish session for the third straight day on Thursday, with the benchmark KSE-100 Index shedding 323.27 points (-0.67 percent) to close at 48,157.63 points.
The market opened on a negative note in line with the global markets, which fell due to the prospects of US Federal Reserves’ hiking of interest rates, but it oscillated between green and red zones. The KSE-100 Index traded in a range of 428.8 points, showing an intraday high of 48,544.6 points and a low of 48,115.8 points.
Among other indices, the KSE All Share Index shed 153.14 points (-0.46 percent) to close at 32,789.91 points, while All Share Islamic Index shed 128.56 points (-0.53 percent) to close at 23,690.64 points.
A total of 388 companies traded shares in the stock exchange, out of them shares of 113 closed up, shares of 260 closed down while shares of 15 companies remained unchanged.
The overall market volumes increased by 180.76 million to 1117.43 million shares. The number of total trades decreased by 3,034 to 192,891, while value traded decreased by Rs2.80 billion to Rs19.61 billion. The overall market capitalisation decreased by Rs38.77 billion.
Among scrips, WTL topped the volumes with 243 million shares, followed by SILK (187.6 million) and KEL (57.4 million). Stocks that contributed significantly to the volumes include WTL, SILK, KEL, BYCO and HUMNL, which formed 50 percent of total volumes.
The sector wise, the index was let down by commercial banks with 62 points, power generation & distribution with 44 points, oil & gas marketing companies with 34 points, technology & communication with 29 points and refinery with 28 points. The most points taken off the index were by HUBC which stripped the index of 31 points followed by TRG with 28 points, HBL with 26 points, UNITY with 24 points and PSEL with 15 points.
The sectors propping up the index were oil & gas exploration companies with 8 points, investment banks/ investment companies/ securities companies with 5 points, transport with 4 points, close-end mutual fund with 2 points and real estate investment trust with one point. The most points added to the index were by POL which contributed 14 points followed by OGDC with 10 points, PSX with 10 points, FCEPL with 9 points and LUCK with 6 points.
Analysts at Arif Habib Limited said that the market tumbled again on Thursday with a drop of 365 points during the session and closing -323 points. They said that refineries, O&GMCs, cement, engineering, banks, fertilizer and technology stocks saw persistent selling pressure despite budget incentives announced last Friday.
The E&P companies were relatively unscathed on the back of stable oil prices, which hovered around US$ 74/bbl, they further said.