Share market declines by 160 points in range bound trading

Share market declines by 160 points in range bound trading

KARACHI: The share market declined by 160 points on Thursday in a range bound trading activity during the day.

The benchmark KSE-100 index of Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) closed at 44,428 points as against previous day’s closing of 44,588 points, showing a decline of 160 points.

Analysts at Arif Habib Limited said that the market traded range bound today with an oscillation between -254 points and +290 points.

Federal cabinet’s decision not to import cotton yarn and sugar from India, added to the confusion amongst Investors, who warmly welcomed the hint of it yesterday.

On the other hand, leverage positions in tech and refinery stocks have continually caused selling pressure in the market, whereby declining prices of pertinent stocks made the concerned investors revisit the investment decision.

Selling pressure was evident in Cement, Steel, Banks, which brought the index down by the end of session. News of vaccine manufacturing by SEARL, helped the stock make a leap towards upper circuit.

Similarly, ENGRO hit upper circuit on the expectation of new investment in a polypropylene plant. Among volume leaders, BYCO topped the volumes with 30.3 million shares, followed by TRG (25.3 million) and GGL (17.9 million).

Sectors contributing to the performance include Technology (-121 points), Cement (-64 points), Banks (-42 points), Refinery (-40 points), O&GMCs (-32 points).

Volumes declined from 443.9 million shares to 313.5 million shares (-29 percent DoD). Average traded value also declined by 33 percent to reach US$ 113.7 million as against US$ 169 million.

Stocks that contributed significantly to the volumes include BYCO, TRG, GGL, PTC and UNITY, which formed 34 percent of total volumes.

Stocks that contributed positively to the index include ENGRO (+152 points), DAWH (+33 points), SEARL (+30 points), SRVI (+18 points) and HUBC (+16 points). Stocks that contributed negatively include TRG (-108 points), LUCK (-20 points), PSO (-19 points), ATRL (-18 points) and MEBL (-18 points).