KARACHI: The stock market witnessed a gain of 91 points on Monday amid heavy selling despite positive news flows related to budgetary measures.
The benchmark KSE-100 index of Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) closed at 48,303 points as against last Friday’s closing of 48,212 points, showing an increase of 91 points.
Analysts at Arif Habib Limited said that the market saw heavy selling pressure today against all the positive news flow that came to fruition over the weekend, from possible reduction in CGT to duty reduction for Auto manufacturers and release of circular debt related payments to IPPs.
Reportedly, ISL increased steel prices today which helped the stock price gain during the session, however profit booking brought the price below LDCP by the closing. E&P, Refinery, O&GMCs, Technology stocks bore selling pressure.
KAPCO, which was the main beneficiary of release of circular debt related funds from the Government, could not stand firmly and selling pressure brought its price below LDCP briefly. Among scrips, HUMNL topped the volumes with 118 million shares, followed by WTL (80.5 million) and PTC (64.6 million).
Sectors contributing to the performance include Glass (+22 points), Fertilizer (+19 points), Textile (+18 points), Power (+14 points) and Cement (+12 points).
Volumes increased from 867.3 million shares to 936 million shares (+7 percent DoD). Average traded value also increased by 4 percent to reach US$ 178.3 million as against US$ 171.9 million.
Stocks that contributed significantly to the volumes include HUMNL, WTL, PTC, BYCO and TELE, which formed 37 percent of total volumes.
Stocks that contributed positively to the index include SYS (+27 points), GHGL (+22 points), KTML (+19 points), HUBC (+12 points) and PTC (+11 points). Stocks that contributed negatively include TRG (-25 points), PSO (-12 points), PPL (-10 points), NML (-9 points) and HBL (-9 points).
