KARACHI - Bear continued its grip over Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) on weekend as the benchmark shares index lost another 225.51 points or (0.46pc) and to close at 48,555.30 level.
Selling pressure was witnessed in the market during its initial hours as the index lost to make an intraday low of 1,289 points. This pressure in the market was on the back of likely redemptions in mutual funds. However, market recovered to close at 48,555 level, said analyst at Topline brokerage.
Recovery in the market came during the latter hours as optimistic investors came in to accumulate positions at attractive levels. Today's major laggards of index were HBL (slip 1.61pc), UBL (1.57pc), OGDC (3.35pc) and ENGRO (0.28pc) as they cumulatively slashed 169 points to the index. Cement sector closed lower than previous day close (down 0.3pc). Mixed sentiments were witnessed in the Steel sector where ASL (gain 2.36pc) and DSL (0.75pc) closed in the green zone, as on the flipside ISL (slump 3.10pc) and INIL (2.92pc) closed in red.
Panic gripped PSX in short session as investor fear foreign outflows amid MSCI EM upgrade and impact of dismal data on CPI inflation for May 2017 on SBP policy decisions. Falling global crude prices and higher tax levies in the federal budget played a catalyst role in bearish close ignoring upbeat data on POL consumption for May 2017, stated analyst Ahsan Mehanti.
Power Cement emerged as volume leader with 16 million traded shares, followed by Bank of Punjab with 12 million traded shares and K-Electric with 12 million shares stood second and third, respectively.
Overall, volume decreased to 222 million shares as compared to 404 million shares changed yesterday. While traded value also declined by Rs15.7 billion/$151 million. Scrips of total 356 active companies were traded in the market, of which 155 closed in green, 190 in red whereas 11 remained unchanged.
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