KARACHI - Pakistan Stocks Exchange (PSX) resumed its bear-run on Monday, the first trading day of the week, as the 100-share index lost 186 points to close at 39,278 points.
Sector-focused activity led the benchmark KSE-100 to close in the red. Essentially, cement stocks continued to slide, as investors’ feared cement over-supply after recent capacity expansion announcements by big players, brokers said.
Selling pressure was seen in the fertilizer sector on the back of the news that fertilizer companies have slashed their prices of urea by up to Rs100/bag in order to compete with urea imported by state-run fertilizer company NFML. Petroleum minister’s statement in senate special committee that they are not going to waive off GIDC charges for the fertilizer sector sparked further selling in the sector. ENGRO (down 1.67%) and EFERT (0.85%) were major losers of the aforementioned sector, dealers said.
MLCF (down 4.54%) in the cement sector lost value as the cement manufacturer posted its financial result for FY16, which was slightly less than the market expectation. OGDC (1.67%), PPL (0.59%) and POL (3.08%) in the E&P sector gained to close in the green zone as crude oil surged to trade above $45/bbl level. Recent gain in crude oil prices can be attributed to statement made by Russian president after his meeting with Saudi deputy crown prince indicating that Russia and OPEC members might agree to an output freeze going forward, observed analyst Nabeel Haroon.
Volumes decreased by 23% to 252m shares. Value decreased by 21% to Rs9.9b/$95m.
MLCF announced EPS of 9.18 along with 2.5 cash dividend. Result was above expectations but stock declined by 4.9%, as MLCF announced Brownfield expansion which investors fear can create oversupply. DFML announced that it will be manufacturing vehicles under toll manufacturing agreements which resulted in the stock to hit its upper limit of 5%. HTL announced EPS of 5.31 with cash dividend of 1.35/share as stock closed down at its lower limit, stated dealers at Topline brokerage.
