KARACHI - Political uncertainty pushed the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) back into the red zone on Thursday as the benchmark KSE 100-index lost 572 points and closed at 42,775 points.
Market index closed 1.32% lower than the previous day’s closing as Lahore High Court (LHC) ordered government to release inquiry report of Model Town incident in Lahore. This does not bode well for the ruling party as it is already facing National Accountability Court (NAB) cases against alleged corruption, observed analyst at Topline Securities.
Investors participation also contracted during the day as trading volumes were down 26% whereas value was down 27%.
Top 5 index point contributors to index decline were HBL (down 2%), MCB (3%), ENGRO (2.4%), UBL (1.5%) & NBP (3.9%), deducting 202 points from index while KEL (up 1 3%) BAFL (0 5%) NRL (0 6%) SNBL (2 2%) & PSMC (0 6%) added 12 points to the index.
On the sector front, commercial banks lost 184 points whereas fertilizer sector contributed 91 points to the index decline. Foreigners remained net sellers of $1.6m as against buying seen during the last 7 days. Volumes deteriorated by 26% DoD standing at 166m shares as compared to 223m shares in the previous trading session. While the traded value also declined to Rs9b/$82.5m.
K-Electric Ltd with 12.5m shares traded and Sui South Gas with 11.2m shares traded led the volumes.
Shares of total 402 active companied traded in the session of which 279 concluded in negative, 90 in positive while 33 remained unchanged.
Market participants expect similar bear trend to continue unless any clarity over political scenario or positive triggers on the economic front.
