KARACHI: The stock market witnessed a decline of 633 points on Thursday owing to surge in cases of coronavirus in the country.
The benchmark KSE-100 index of Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) ended at 40,564 points as against previous day’s closing of 41,197 points, showing a decline of 633 points.
Analysts at KASB Research said that Pakistan Stocks were remained under pressure throughout the day amid a deteriorating coronavirus situation in the country.
Investors feared that an intensifying pandemic situation and any new restrictions to curb the spread of coronavirus will have a negative impact on the economy.
However, optimism about a Covid-19 vaccine pushed the market up at the start of the week. But the excitement has been seen fading away in the last 2 sessions as investors and health experts raise questions about when it may become available for widespread use.
“We expect that the rising coronavirus cases and risk of fresh restrictions by the government will keep the market jittery in the coming days,” the analysts said.
Analysts at Topline Securities Limited said that after a sideway opening benchmark KSE100 Index slid making an intraday low of 704 points.
Initial negativity came from both SUI’s as OGRA rip unaccounted Gas UFG losses for both RLNG consumers for both SUI’s resultantly SNGP and SSGC closed 7.5 percent and 5.79 percent lower respectively.
Further, Banks, E&Ps and Cements were the major laggards in today’s trading session. Volumes remained thin with total volume clocking in at 325 million shares while total traded value for the day stood at Rs. 11.19 billion. UNITY was today’s volume leader with 29.4 million shares traded.
