Stock market witnesses slight decline amid profit taking

Stock market witnesses slight decline amid profit taking

KARACHI: The stock market fell by nominal 28 points on Thursday owing to profit taking as investors preferred profit booking considering long weekend.

The benchmark KSE-100 index of Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) closed at 46,905 points as against previous day’s closing of 46,933 points, showing a slight decline of 28 points.

Analysts at Arif Habib Limited said that last trading session of the short trading week made yet another new high of 47,339 points with E&P, O&GMCs, Banks and Cement sectors contributing to the upsurge.

Being a long weekend ahead, Investors preferred booking profit than holding the positions to meet an unforeseen event over the weekend.

Resultantly, the index eroded the gains of 406 points made during the session to close the session -28 points. Banking sectors saw almost across the board slide, whereas Engineering (Steel) sector also saw regression. Among scrips, PRL realized trading volumes of 34.4 million shares, followed by TRG (30.3 million) and KEL (18.6 million).  

Sectors contributing to the performance include E&P (+119 points), Fertilizer (+21 points), Banks (-37 points), Pharma (-34 points), and Technology (-29 points).

Volumes declined from 616.3 million shares to 440.3 million shares (-29 percent DoD). Average traded value also declined by 11 percent to reach US$ 165.1 million as against US$ 184.2 million.

Stocks that contributed significantly to the volumes include PRL, TRG, KEL, PIBTL and HASCOL, which formed 26 percent of total volumes.

Stocks that contributed positively to the index include MARI (+70 points), OGDC (+42 points), LUCK (+29 points), SYS (+18 points) and ENGRO (+16 points). Stocks that contributed negatively include TRG (-47 points), AGP (-19 points), MCB (-16 points), PAKT (-14 points) and MLCF (-14 points).