KARACHI: The stocks ended down by 149 points on Friday as investors were concerned over high inflation and falling foreign exchange reserves.
The benchmark KSE-100 index of Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) closed at 44,118 points as against previous day’s closing of 44,267 points, showing a decrease of 148.5 points.
Analysts at Arif Habib Limited said that the battle between bulls and bears was conquered by the bears in the last trading hour.
Market opened with a positive momentum as State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) SBP conducted another Open Market Operation (OMO) for 63 days.
Optimistic approach faded away due to concerns of investors towards higher inflation and dip in total liquid foreign exchange reserves held by the SBP mainly due to external debt repayment.
Activity continued to remain side-ways as the market witnessed hefty volumes in the 3rd tier stocks. On the flip-side, in the second session institutional buyers started fetching value stocks due to attractive multiples.
Sectors contributing to the performance include Technology & Communication (-60 points), Chemical (-36 points), Cement (-25 points) Oil & Gas Exploration Companies (-17 points) and Textile (-9 points).
Volumes decreased from 240.4 million shares to 223.4 million shares (-7.1 per cent DoD). Traded value also decreased by 8.5 per cent to reach US$ 41.2 million as against US$ 45.0 million.
Stocks that contributed significantly to the volumes include UNITYR3, HUMNL, TRG, TPLP and UNITY.
