KARACHI: The stock market fell by 168 points on Monday owing to profit taking by the investors during the day.
The benchmark KSE-100 index of Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) closed at 40,122 points as against 40,291 points showing a decline of 168 points.
Analysts at Arif Habib Limited said that the market took bantering today due to negative impact of tariff rationalization of IPPs, which transpired over the weekend, as well as selling pressure on Fertilizer and Cement sectors on repayment of GIDC as decided by the Supreme Court on the last trading day.
ENGRO hit lower circuit, however, recovered later. Similarly, index heavy weight HUBC saw heavy selling pressure that brought the index down.
Among Banks, HBL saw rates coming down more than other stocks in the sector, which is primarily attributed to profit booking by Investors.
E&P and O&GMCs performed well, partly due to switching by investors from Power and Fertilizer sectors and partly because of expectation of resolution of circular debt.
Resultantly, SNGP and SSGC hit upper circuits, whereas PSO also traded near upper circuit. O&GMCs topped the volumes with 72.3 million shares, followed by Power (67.5 million) and Vanaspati (57.7 million).
Among scrips, UNITY led the volumes with 37.3 million shares, followed by HASCOL (35.2 million) and TRG (26.4 million).
Sectors contributing to the performance include O&GMCs (+95 points), Pharma (+36 points), E&P (+33 points), Autos (+22 points) and Engineering (+14 points), Fertilizer (-170 points) and Power (-125 points).
Volumes declined from 556.3 million shares to 522.7 million shares (-6 percent DoD). Average traded value, on the contrary, increased by 16 percent to reach US$ 133.7 million as against US$ 115.1 million.
Stocks that contributed significantly to the volumes include UNITY, HASCOL, TRG, PRL and PAEL, which formed 29 percent of total volumes.
Stocks that contributed positively to the index include PSO (+49 points), SNGP (+28 points), ABOT (+18 points), OGDC (+18 points) and PPL (+17 points). Stocks that contributed negatively include HUBC (-121 points), ENGRO (-116 points), HBL (-62 points), EFERT (-62 points) and LUCK (-27 points).
