KARACHI: The stock market plunged by 492 points on Monday as energy scrips remained under pressure owing to slide in international oil prices. The benchmark KSE-100 index of Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) closed at 32,315 points as against 32,806 points showing a decline of 492 points.
Analysts at Arif Habib Limited said that the market opened on a negative today at -198 points and 1.6 million shares traded at the opening bell.
In few minutes, the benchmark index hit -450 points and gradually picked pace to realize a loss of 675 points during the entire session.
Cement sector largely took the bantering, mainly due to concerns over recent increase in price / bag.
Resultantly, KOHC hit lower circuit breaker and maintained that level till close of session. International crude oil prices also slid by 8.5 percent that kept pressure on E&P stocks.
Overall trading volumes also remained low comparatively.
Cement sector led the volumes with 41.5 million shares, followed by O&GMCs (10.5 million) and Banks (9.3 million).
Among scrips, MLCF realized 17.3 million shares, followed by HASCOL (7.4 million) and DGKC (7 million).
Sectors contributing to the performance include E&P (-89 points), Cement (-85 points), Banks (-84 points), Power (-59 points) and O&GMCs (-38 points).
Volumes declined from increased from 120.2 million shares to 122.2 million shares (+2 percent DoD).
Average traded value increased by 8 percent to reach US$ 33 million as against US$ 30.6 million.
Stocks that contributed significantly to the volumes include MLCF, HASCOL, DGKC, UNITY and PIOC, which formed 35 percent of total volumes.
Stocks that contributed positively to the index include PAKT (+14 points), FFC (+6 points), BYCO (+6 points), ATRL (+4 points) and AGIL (+4 points). Stocks that contributed negatively include HUBC (-50 points), MARI (-44 points), LUCK (-38 points), UBL (-34 points), and ENGRO (-31 points).
