KARACHI: The equity market crashed again on Wednesday and lost 1396 points after witnessing eighth lower lock in this month.
The benchmark KSE-100 index of Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) closed at 27,229 points as against 28,564 points showing a decline of 1336 points.
Analysts at Arif Habib Limited said that the market witnessed the 8th halt today which occurred at 12:20 PM when the market was trading -1270 points having realized volumes of 71.4M shares.
The market opened on a positive note with +100 points and 4.35 million shares, which was primarily the result of relief package announced by the Prime Minister last evening.
The eventual decline in the index is explained by the non-decision of the government on the fate of market related relaxation which the Industry looked forward to, on account of Capital Gains Tax (CGT) or similar such relief.
Overall the benchmark index slid by 1396 points and closed the session -1336 points.
Most of the volume was realized by cement sector with 34.2 million shares, followed by banks (21.8 million) and power (18.1 million).
Among scrips, MLCF topped the charts with 14.4 million shares, followed by KEL (11.6 million) and BOP (7.9 million).
Sectors contributing to the performance include Banks (-430 points), Cement (-149 points), E&P (-132 points), Fertilizer (-108 points) and Power (-100 points).
Volumes increased from 98.8mn shares to 145.1 million shares (+47 percent DoD). Average traded value also improved by 121 percent to reach US$ 34.0 million as against US$ 15.6 million.
Stocks that contributed significantly to the volumes include MLCF, KEL, BOP, UNITY and FCCL, which formed 33 percent of total volumes.
Stocks that contributed positively to the index include FFC (+40 points), POL (+24 points), MUREB (+10 points), KEL (+8 points) and LOTCHEM (+4 points).
Stocks that contributed negatively include ENGRO (-130 points), HBL (-130 points), HUBC (-100 points), UBL (-81 points), and MCB (-75 points).
