KARACHI: The stock exchange ended down by 257 points on Friday after the Sindh government to impose strict lockdown to prevent spread of coronavirus.
The benchmark KSE-100 index of Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) closed at 47,056 points as against previous day’s close of 47,312 points, showing a decline of 257 points.
Analysts at Arif Habib Limited said that with the optimism of deferring the COVID lockdown, the market added 330 points earlier in the session today, however, government’s decision to impose strict lock down in the face of rising COVID cases eroded all the earlier gains and caused the Index to tumble.
Banks, O&GMCs, Cement, Chemical, Refinery and Technology sectors bore the brunt of lockdown, whereas steel sector performed well due to announcement of price increase by flat steel manufacturers.
Among scrips, WTL led the table with 39.2 million shares, followed by BYCO (38.4 million) and TELE (24.6 million).
Sectors contributing to the performance include Technology (-54 points), Fertilizer (-45 points), Cement (-35 points), Banks (-27 points) and Textile (-17 points).
Volumes increased from 376.4 million shares to 399.1 million (6 per cent DoD). Average traded value also increased by 12 per cent to reach US$ 84.8 million as against US$ 75.7 million.
Stocks that contributed significantly to the volumes include WTL, BYCO, TELE, HUMNL and TPL, which formed 34 per cent of total volumes.
Stocks that contributed positively to the index include EFERT (+12 points), MEBL (+11 points), PSX (+10 points), HMB (+9 points) and SCBPL (+8 points). Stocks that contributed negatively include TRG (-47 points), FFC (-44 points), HBL (-39 points), LUCK (-23 points) and PPL (-17 points).
