KARACHI: The share market fell by 260 points on Wednesday owing to selling pressure seen during the day.
The benchmark KSE-100 index of Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) closed at 30,971 points as against 31,231 points showing a decline of 260 points.
Analysts at Arif Habib Limited said that overnight pressure on international crude prices bore impact on KSE100 as well. With OPEC+ meeting scheduled for tomorrow (PST 7:00 PM), followed by a G20 meeting on Friday, on the same subject, i.e. production cut and management of crude price, local E&P stocks didn’t fell as much as the fall was witnessed in crude prices.
Market traded uni-directional (negative) for the most part of the session with Oil & Gas chain trading red. On the other hand, cyclicals, which had positive sentiments yesterday on the back of partial resumption of activities (primarily in Punjab), today saw selling pressure.
Cement sector, as have been the case for the past several sessions, again topped the volumes with 42.1 million shares, followed by Vanaspati (28.8 million) and O&GMCs (28.4 million).
Among scrips, UNITY (got traction from issuance of SRO on withdrawal of additional custom duty) led the volumes with 28.8 million shares, followed by HASCOL (25.8 million) and PAEL (14.1 million).
Sectors contributing to the performance include Banks (-115 points), E&P (-45 points), Cement (-37 points), Tobacco (-36 points), Fertilizer (-21 points), Insurance (+23 points).
Volumes increased from 172.7 million shares to 181.0 million shares (+5 percent DoD). Average traded value, on the other hand, declined by 13 percent to reach US$ 35.1 million as against US$ 40.2 million.
Stocks that contributed significantly to the volumes include UNITY, HASCOL, PAEL, MLCF and PIOC, which formed 50 percent of total volumes.
Stocks that contributed positively to the index include MCB (+18 points), IGIHL (9 points), KOHC (+9 points), KAPCO (+8 points) and OGDC (+7 points). Stocks that contributed negatively include PAKT (-36 points), LUCK (-32 points), BAFL (-29 points), BAHL (-28 points), and POL (-23 points).
