KARACHI: The stock market fell by 748 points on Tuesday on aggressive profit taking by the investors.
The benchmark KSE-100 index of Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) closed at 34,949 points as against 35,697 points showing a decline of 748 points.
Analysts at Arif Habib Limited said that the market took a major bantering today after resisting the tide of profit taking since Friday.
The meteoric rise of Index observed last week was matched today with a slide of ~800 points, although the index closed -748 points.
A host of factors could have played a role behind today’s activity, including MSCI rebalancing, delay in launching State Enterprise and Opportunity Fund and also negative news flow on Cement manufacturers.
Adding salt to the injury, conjecture on upcoming Budget also led to bearish sentiment amongst investors.
Nonetheless, profit booking was already on the anvil post a rapid increase in Index last week. Selling was observed across the board, however, major volumes were seen in Cement, Banks and Chemical sectors.
Sectors contributing to the performance include E&P (-170 points), Fertilizer (-163 points), Banks (-159 points), O&GMCs (-74 points) and Cement (-59 points).
Volumes increased from 125.2 million shares to 152.3 million shares (+22 percent DoD). Average traded value also increased by 46 percent to reach US$ 49 million as against US$ 33.5 million.
Stocks that contributed significantly to the volumes include FCCL, BOP, UNITY, EPCL and MLCF, which formed 28 percent of total volumes.
Stocks that contributed positively include NESTLE (+24 points), PAKT (+17 points), PKGS (+7 points), PSMC (+6 points) and HCAR (+5 points). Stocks that contributed negatively include OGDC (-66 points), FFC (-62 points), HBL (-59 points), POL (-53 points) and PPL (-38 points).
