KARACHI: The equity market increased by 90 points on Wednesday amid selling pressure witnessed during the day.
The benchmark KSE-100 index of Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) closed at 33,693 points as against 33,603 points showing an increase of 90 points (+0.3 percent DoD).
Analysts at Arif Habib Limited said that market opened on a positive note today with +125 points and maintained the momentum from yesterday, gaining 200 points before facing resistance.
MSCI rebalancing did not result in HBL’s ouster, which is the main reason for selling pressure in HBL in the past sessions.
HBL posted price gains but still stayed within limits. Cement sector bore selling pressure, as did Power and E&P sectors.
Among pharma stocks, FEROZ posted a consistent upper circuit, whereas buying activity was also observed in SEARL.
Among O&GMCs, SNGP faced selling pressure due to exclusion from MSCI EM Index.
Cement sector led the volumes with 69.1 million shares, followed by Technology (32.1 million) and O&GMCs (16.1 million).
Among scrips, MLCF had 23.2 million shares, followed by DCL (16.2 million) and TRG (15.9 million).
Sectors contributing to the performance include Banks (+72 points), E&P (+41 points), Pharma (+17 points), Technology (+13 points), Power (-19 points) and Inv Banks (-16 points).
Volumes declined from 224.5 million shares to 219.2 million shares (-2 percent DoD). Average traded value, on the contrary, increased by 11 percent to reach US$ 51.0 million as against US$ 45.9 million.
Stocks that contributed significantly to the volumes include MLCF, TRG, DCL, FCCL and HASCOL, which formed 34 percent of total volumes.
Stocks that contributed positively to the index include HBL (+37 points), PPL (+29 points), MARI (+18 points), TRG (+18 points) and MCB (+15 points). Stocks that contributed negatively include SNGP (-27 points), HUBC (-22 points), ENGRO (-19 points), DAWH (-16 points), and EFUG (-11 points).
