KARACHI: The stock market ended down by 237 points on Thursday as bearish trend prevailed over IMF talks and forthcoming budget.
The benchmark KSE-100 index of Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) closed at 36,548 points as against 36,784 points showing a decline of 237 points.
Analysts at Arif Habib Limited said that the market remained under pressure after an initial increase of 73 points.
During the session, the benchmark index saw erosion of 237 points, mostly caused by the cement sector due to rumors of no agreement amongst the cement manufacturers on sales quota.
On the other hand, tough asks from IMF and expectations of tougher budget by the end of May maintained an overall bearish sentiment.
Total market volumes dropped drastically as well to 68 million shares as against 111 million traded in the previous session. Besides cements, the food sector also traded in the red zone.
Sectors contributing to the performance include Commercial Banks (-54 points), Food & Personal Care (-38 points), Power Generation (-36 points), OGMCs (-26 points), Chemicals (-12 points), Real Estate (+2 points) and Pharma (+2 points).
Volumes decreased from 68 million shares to 111 million shares (-39 percent DoD). Average traded value also decreased by 46 percent to reach US$ 17.5 million as against US$ 32.6 million.
Stocks that contributed significantly to the volumes include UNITY, FFL, MLCF, PIAA and LOTCHEM which formed 45 percent of total volumes.
Stocks that contributed positively include ENGRO (+8 points), PSMC (+6 points), KTML (+6 points), PPL (+5 points), and SPWL (+4 points). Stocks that contributed negatively include NESTLE (-37 points), HUBC (-32 points), HBL (-18 points), PSO (-16 points) and MEBL (-12 points).
