KARACHI: The stock market saw a decline of 726 points on Thursday as investors’ were cautions over monetary policy statement (MPS) announcement due on March 19, 2021 and reports of tax exemption withdrawal.
The benchmark KSE-100 index of Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) closed at 44,724 points as against previous day’s close of 45,450 points showing a decline of 726 points.
Analysts at Arif Habib Limited said that the market came down today by 809 points during the session, after posting an initial increase of 163 points.
Increase in leverage levels during the ongoing week from Rs. 35B level (across MTS, MFS and Futures) on March 12th to Rs. 41B till yesterday reignited the issue of overleveraging at a time, when key economic decisions are pending on account of monetary policy as well as withdrawal of tax exemptions.
Selling was observed across the board, with Cement, Steel, Refinery and Tech stocks contributing to the onslaught. Among scrips, BYCO topped the volumes with 57.8 million shares, followed by KEL (49.5 million) and TRG (39.1 million).
Sectors contributing to the performance include Tech (-118 points), Banks (-112 points), E&P (-87 points), Cement (-86 points) and O&GMCs (-48 points).
Volumes increased from 510.8 million shares to 554.1 million shares (+8 percent DoD). Average traded value declined by 5 percent to reach US$ 153.3 million as against US$ 160.4 million.
Stocks that contributed significantly to the volumes include BYCO, KEL, TRG, HUMNL and ANL, which formed 37 percent of total volumes.
Stocks that contributed positively to the index include FFC (+16 points), EPCL (+10 points), INDU (+6 points), AGP (+4 points) and NESTLE (+3 points). Stocks that contributed negatively include TRG (-101 points), ENGRO (-47 points), PSO (-35 points), PPL (-34 points) and BAHL (-33 points).
