LAHORE - Pakistan Stock Market witnessed another bearish session on Thursday, with the benchmark KSE 100-index settling at 45,388 points, down by 91 points.

Stock market kicked off positive, making an intraday high of +14 points, but succumbed to pressure, making an intraday low of -356 points, as the cements and financials came under duress. One the economic front, the government fears the high twin deficits could pose challenges on the external front.

In yesterday's trading session, major heavyweights such as UBL (-0.6 percent), ENGRO (-0.1 percent), MCB (-0.2 percent), LUCK (-1.7percent) and FFC (-0.5 percent) cumulatively contributed 53 points. Moreover, traded volumes slightly got better by 18 percent DoD to 183m while value traded minutely increased to $74m. Top volume stocks were EPCL (-1.1percent), BOP (+2.4 percent), FCCL (-4.8 percent) and KEL (-1.4 percent). In the fertilizers, FFC (-0.5 percent) and EFERT (-0.6 percent) closed in the red as the government forecasted 15.5 percent decrease in overall fertilizer consumption for Kharif season 2018 as compared to the previous Kharif season.

In the financials, MEBL and AKBL announced 1Q2018 unconsolidated EPS of 1.80 and 1.10, up by 22 percent & 12 percent respectively. EPCL (-1.1percent) from the chemical sector declared its 1QFY18 result, where the company posted an EPS of Rs2.18/share with no cash payout.

Moving forward, it is expected overall activity to remain volatile and under pressure in the coming sessions with flows from foreign and local institutions guiding the market direction.