KARACHI: The stock market ended with decline of 383 points on Thursday owing to selling pressure seen in the market.
The benchmark KSE-100 index of Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) closed at 33,899 points as against 34,281 points showing a decline of 383 points.
Analysts at Arif Habib Limited said that the market opened on a positive note with +12 points and 0.4 million shares.
The benchmark index went up to 80 points earlier in the session, which was followed by growing selling pressure.
The only stock that mattered today was clearly LOTCHEM, which realized trading volume of 59.6 million shares (approx. 16 percent of its free float and 43 percent of the total trading volume of today).
No other stock managed to cross even 6 million share traded volume. LOTCHEM announced 9 million financial results, which was largely inline with street estimates, however, cherry on top was 15 percent dividend that matched last year’s declaration.
On the whole, index lost 383 points with a total volume of 138 million shares, most of which was contributed by Chemical sector and followed by Technology (8.1 million) and Power (7.9 million). Among scrips, KEL (5.2 million) and TRG (4.2 million) followed LOTCHEM.
Sectors contributing to the performance include Banks (-147 points), E&P (-87 points), Cement (-36 points), Pharma (-33 points) and O&GMCs (-23 points).
Volumes declined from 151.4 million shares to 137.9 million shares (-9 percent DoD). Average traded value also declined by 23 percent to reach US$ 24.1 million as against US$ 31.4 million.
Stocks that contributed significantly to the volumes include LOTCHEM, KEL, TRG, UNITY and QUICE, which formed 55 percent of total volumes.
Stocks that contributed positively include KAPCO (+7 points), COLG (+7 points), ICI (+4 points), MUREB (+4 points) and EFERT (+3 points). Stocks that contributed negatively include HBL (-54 points), UBL (-39 points), MARI (-26 points), PPL (-25 points), and LUCK (-19 points).
