KARACHI: The stock exchange fell by 518 points on Monday owing to upcoming MSCI review and reports of tax laden budget.
The benchmark KSE-100 index of Pakistan Stock Exchange closed at 35,605 points as against 36,123 points showing a decline of 518 points.
Market continued negative drive today amidst issues like MSCI review on May 13th, impending tough budget, possibility of policy rate hike by SBP by month end and pending IMF package.
Volumes were driven by Cement Sector that couldn’t find solution of sales quota and declining sales volume.
Market volumes have been anemic since last week, which was the case even today. All shares index registered a volume of 71M shares, with Cement Sector leading the index (14.7M shares), followed by Banks (11.7M) and Engineering (6M).
Steel scrips traded at and close to lower circuit. Among scrips, MLCF topped the chart with 6.4M shares followed by BOP (5.7M). market closed near day’s low of 553 points.
Sectors contributing to the performance include E&P (-117 points), Banks (-99 points), Cement (-72 points), Fertilizer (-71 points) and Power (-51 points).
Volumes improved slightly from 64mn shares to 71mn shares (11 percent DoD). Average traded value also increased by 8 percent to reach US$ 22.4mn as against US$ 20.65mn.
Stocks that contributed significantly to the volumes include MLCF, BOP, UNITY, FCCL and UBL, which formed 31 percent of total volumes.
Stocks that contributed positively include COLG (+12 points), BAFL (+8 points), AGIL (+4 points) and DAWH (+4 points). Stocks that contributed negatively include PPL (-58 points), LUCK (-44 points), ENGRO (-42 points), UBL (-37 points) and HUBC (-32 points).
