KARACHI: The stock market plunged by 417 points on Tuesday following decision of the top court regarding extension of Chief of the Army Staff’s tenure.
The benchmark KSE-100 index of Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) closed at 37,795 points as against 38,212 points showing a decline of 417 points.
Analysts at Arif Habib Limited said that the market opened on a positive note today and went up by 356 points in initial trading.
As the news of Supreme Court’s notice on extension of COAS’s tenure caused panic among investors. The market took a nose dive of 676 points and although staged recovery a couple of times, but failed to manage the selling pressure. The session ended with negative 417 points.
As a result of confusion amongst investors, apparently those who booked positions earlier in the session resorted to selling to stem losses, trading volumes increased to 488 million shares.
Selling pressure was observed in Cement sector, particularly DGKC and LUCK, where a rumour of an increase in Cement price caused investors to take positions.
Similarly, banking sector faced selling pressure, with MCB taking a major toll. Cement sector led the volumes with 69.4 million shares, followed by Vanaspati (58.1 million) and Banks (50.4 million).
Among scrips, UNITY registered trading volume of 58.1 million shares, followed by FFL (33.9 million) and PAEL (29.6 million).
Sectors contributing to the performance include E&P (-101 points), Banks (-95 points), Power (-92 points), Cement (-56 points) and O&GMCs (-49 points).
Volumes increased significantly from 241.5 million shares to 488.1 million shares (+102 percent DoD). Average traded value also increased by 110 percent to reach US$ 118.3 million as against 56.5 million.
Stocks that contributed significantly to the volumes include UNITY, FFL, PAEL, BOP and DGKC, which formed 34 percent of total volumes.
Stocks that contributed positively include ENGRO (+46 points), AICL (+8 points), SYS (+8 points), EFUG (+7 points) and COLG (+6 points). Stocks that contributed negatively include HUBC (-74 points), OGDC (-61 points), MCB (-45 points), PSO (-34 points), and LUCK (-31 points).
