Stocks remain under pressure on political noise

Stocks remain under pressure on political noise

KARACHI: Pakistan stocks remained under pressure during the day on Thursday due to appearance of PTI Chief Imran Khan before the higher court in contempt case.

The benchmark KSE-100 Index of Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) largely remained under pressure during the trading session on account of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) Chairman announcement of launching of fresh movement from Saturday to press the government to announce early election.

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“However some recovery was observed in the last hours of trading as PTI Chairman apologized before the Islamabad High Court in his contempt of court case,” said Nabeel Haroon, analysts at Topline Securities.

The benchmark KSE-100 index ended at 40,928 points from previous day’s closing of 40,965 points, showing a decline of 37 points.

Analysts at Arif Habib Limited stated that PSX witnessed a negative session due to prevailing political noise.

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“The benchmark KSE-100 index nosedived following the same trend from the previous session although in the last trading hour value buying was recorded,” they added.

Volumes continued to thrive in the main board whereas hefty volumes were observed in the 3rd tier stocks.

Sectors contributing to the performance include Banks (-19.3 points), Autos (-16.3 points), Inv. Banks (-11.6 points), Pharma (-11.3 points) and Power (-11.2 points).

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Volumes increased from 170.4 million shares to 190.0 million shares (+11.5 per cent DoD). The average traded value also increased by 30.9 per cent to US$ 26.4 million as against US$ 20.1 million.

Stocks that contributed significantly to the volumes are WTL, CNERGY, TRG, KEL and SILK.

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