KARACHI: The stock market fell by 185 points on Tuesday as investors opted for profit booking during the day.
The benchmark KSE-100 index of Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) closed at 42,346 points as against 42,531 points showing a decline of 185 points.
Analysts at Arif Habib Limited said that the market opened on a positive today, maintained positive momentum during the session but selling pressure in the end brought the index down.
Profit booking continues from past sessions, however, Investors have generally been switching positions from stocks that have nearly doubled from their recent bottoms (Cement) into Stocks that have had muted performance (Banks & O&GMCs).
ENGRO saw selling pressure due to it being Ex-dividend, however, prospects of increase in price of fertilizer kept the buying interest alive. Cement sector stocks performed well during the session on the back of increase in cement prices in North region, however, profit booking brought the prices down again.
O&GMCs topped the volumes with 74.2 million shares, followed by Cement (74.1 million) and Power (63.4 million). Among scrips, HASCOL led the volumes with 63.7 million shares, followed by KEL (54 million) and BYCO (42.6 million).
Sectors contributing to the performance include Banks (-66 points), Fertilizer (-50 points), Inv Banks (-25 points), Technology (-25 points) and Insurance (-16 points).
Volumes increased from 509.5 million shares to 662.8 million shares (+30 percent DoD). Average traded value also increased by 28 percent to reach US$ 111.9 million as against US$ 87.5 million.
Stocks that contributed significantly to the volumes include HASCOL, KEL, BYCO, BOP and UNITY, which formed 36 percent of total volumes.
Stocks that contributed positively to the index include MTL (+13 points), NESTLE (+11 points), MLCF (+10 points), THALL (+7 points) and EPCL (+6 points). Stocks that contributed negatively include ENGRO (-39 points), DAWH (-22 points), UBL (-21 points), HBL (-20 points) and TRG (-18 points).
