KARACHI: The stock market fell by 33 points on Thursday owing to profit booking in major scripts during the day. The benchmark KSE-100 index of Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) closed at 48,094 points as against previous day’s closing of 48,127 points, showing a decline of 33 points.
Analysts at Arif Habib Limited said that the market traded in the positive zone for most part of the session, however, profit booking in Cement, Banks, Textile and E&P sector brought the index down by 117 points, closing the session -33 points.
Among O&GMCs, PSO inched up on the expectation of release of funds, whereas Steel sector performed on the possibility of reduction of duties in the upcoming budget. Technology stocks saw activity in TRG and NETSOL.
Among volume leaders, WTL led with 134.6 million shares, followed by FNEL (48.1 million) and ICIBL (42.4 million).
Sectors contributing to the performance include Cement (-45 points), Banks (-35 points), Fertilizer (-26 points), Technology (+42 points) and O&GMCs (+19 points).
Volumes declined from 1,046 million as against 890 million shares (-15 percent DoD). Average traded value however, increased by 14 percent to reach US$ 205 million as against US$ 179 million.
Stocks that contributed significantly to the volumes include WTL, FNEL, ICIBL, TRG and HUMNL, which formed 32 percent of total volumes.
Stocks that contributed positively to the index include TRG (+44 points), MEBL (+23 points), PSO(+12 points), INIL (+10 points) and SEARL (+8 points). Stocks that contributed negatively include LUCK (-48 points), BAHL (-17 points), MTL (-16 points), ENGRO (-16 points) and UNITY (-15 points).
