KARACHI: Pakistan stocks tumbled on Wednesday as its benchmark index lost 908 points after the US announced to impose sanctions on the Taliban.
The benchmark KSE-100 index of the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) ended at 44,367 points against the previous day’s closing of 45,275 points.
Analysts at Arif Habib Limited said after the initial uptick of 67 points carrying positive sentiment from yesterday, the market took a nose dive due to concerns on the foreign policy front where the US announced sanctions on the Taliban and its supporters that had PSX investors worry about the fate of relations with the US.
Resultantly, the index tumbled around 1300 points during intraday trading.
Selling was observed across the board with a major decline in Technology, Banks, E&P, O&GMCs and Fertilizer.
Among scrips, TELE topped the volumes with 52.4 million shares, followed by WTL (50.8 million) and DCR (36 million).
Sectors contributing to the performance include Banks (-172 points), Technology (-128 points), Cement (-100 points), Pharma (-65 points) and Fertilizer (-58 points).
Volumes increased from 364.8 million shares to 468.8 million shares (+28 per cent DoD). Average traded value also increased by 17 per cent to reach US$ 96.2 million as against US$ 82.2 million.
Stocks that contributed significantly to the volumes include TELE, WTL, DCR, BYCO and ANL, which formed 43 per cent of total volumes.
Stocks that contributed positively to the index include PAKT (+19 points), SCBPL (+3 points), GLAXO (+1 points), MUREB (+0 points) and IBFL (+0 points). Stocks that contributed negatively include TRG (-88 points), MCB (-61 points), SEARL (-35 points), SYS (-35 points) and LUCK (-35 points).
