KARACHI: The stock market witnessed decline of 226 points on Thursday owing to selling pressure prevailed during the day.
The benchmark KSE-100 index of Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) closed at 37,578 points as against 37,804 points showing a decline of 226 points.
Analysts at Arif Habib Limited said that the market had an exciting session, which resulted in quite some fluctuation between positive and negative throughout the day and closed the session -226 points.
Selling pressure was mainly observed in Cement, Steel, Pharma, OMCs etc. which caused the market to plunge.
Banking sector stocks, MCB, HBL, UBL saw buying activity that helped Index balance a bit, however, selling pressure eroded the gains posted by Banking sector stocks.
During the session, market went up by 302 points but lost these gains and declined by 264 points. Textile sector led the volumes with 41.4 million shares, followed by Vanaspati (38.1 million) and Technology (34.1 million).
Among scrips, UNITY topped the volumes with 38.1 million shares, followed by ANL (31.2 million) and FFL (23.4 million).
Sectors contributing to the performance include Banks (+21 points), Inv Banks (+12 points), Cement (-116 points), Power (-36 points), E&P (-30 points), O&GMCs (-24 points), Pharma (-22 points).
Volumes declined from 405.5 million shares to 379.3 million shares (-6 percent DoD). Average traded value also declined by 21 percent to reach US$ 84.0 million as against US$ 106.2 million.
Stocks that contributed significantly to the volumes include UNITY, ANL, FFL, KEL and HASCOL, which formed 35 percent of total volumes.
Stocks that contributed positively to the index include MTL (+19 points), MCB (+18 points), DAWH (+14 points), INDU (+9 points) and UBL (+8 points). Stocks that contributed negatively include LUCK (-55 points), HUBC (-36 points), PPL (-25 points), ENGRO (-15 points), and DGKC (-14 points).