Equity market sinks by 785 points on Indian aggression

Equity market sinks by 785 points on Indian aggression

KARACHI: The equity market eroded by 785 points on Tuesday following violation of Pakistani air space by India.

Indian military planes violated the Line of Control (LoC), intruding from the Muzaffarabad sector, Director-General Inter-Services Public Relations Major-General Asif Ghafoor said on his official Twitter account early on Tuesday.

The benchmark KSE-100 index of Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) closed at 38,822 points as against 39,607 points showing a decline of 785 points.

Analysts at Arif Habib Limited said that it was quite an eventful day it turned out to be.

Indian aggression on Pakistani soil caused mayhem at PSX, where the index opened 184 points down and ended the session at 880 points down.

All in all, 287 scrips were seen in decline, whereas 48 advanced.

At a point in time, the market went down to 680 points and recovered to 370 points down, which was contributed generally by index heavy weights, especially HBL and UBL.

However, last half hour of trading coincided with the press conference of Ministers that caused significantly higher number of scrips touching lower circuits.

Sectors contributing to performance include Banks (-211 points), E&P (-148 points), Fertilizer (-106 points), Cement (-92 points), O&GMCs (-60 points).

Volumes increased from 68 million shares to 162 million shares (+137 percent DoD).

Average traded value also increased by 89 percent to reach US$ 50 million as against US$ 26 million.

Stocks that contributed significantly to the volumes include BOP, KEL, EPCL, PIBTL and MLCF, which formed 32 percent of total volumes.

Stocks that contributed positively include PAKT (+30 points), AGIL (+5 points), ARPL (+4 points), ATLH (+3 points), and EPCL (+1 points). Stocks that contributed negatively include OGDC (-57 points), PPL (-47 points), LUCK (-40 points), UBL (-38 points) and BAHL (-37 points).