KARACHI - The Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) closed trading week on a negative note, with the benchmark KSE-100 index plunging by 354 points and closing at 41436 points.

Though the index offered some resistance in the first half of the trading session, it showed a steep decline in the second half of the day, brokers said.

Red was the color of the day, where majority scrips were seen trading in red zone. As anticipated, oil & gas, banks, fertilizer, cement sectors saw profit-taking and the positivity, led by waiver of SECP’s requirement on mutual funds margins, seems to fizzle out. Concerns about downward revision in upcoming MSCI review on 13th also seem to play its role, according AHL Market Data.

Commercial banks dragged down the market as well, eroding 62 points from the index. On a scrip-wise basis, market was led by BOP that added 8 points, DAWH 8 points, SEARLE 6 points, NPL 6 points and PKGS contributed 4 points to the index gain respectively.

On the other side, stocks that remained in red included ENGRO that shed 47 points, LUCK 45 points, HBL 35 points, PPL 25 points, and UBL took away 25 points from the index respectively. Selling pressure was witnessed in the cement sector where heavyweights LUCK (down 3.18%), DGKC (2.34%), DCL (2.00%) and MLCF (0.62%) lost value to close in the red trajectory, said dealer at JS Global.

Market was able to sustain volume of 128m shares; however, it was lower by 21% DoD than the previous day’s volume of 162m. Average traded value also declined by 44% DoD to USD54m from USD97m.

Stocks which dominated the market in terms of volumes include ANL, DSL, SSGC, BOP and EPCL which cumulatively contributed ~41% to total volumes.