KARACHI -  The Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) witnessed bearish trend on weekend, the KSE-100 index lost 304 points (down 0.73pc) to close at 41,105.41 level.

The shares index made an intraday high of 41,420 points and a low of 40,904 points, brokers said. Pressure remained in stocks across the board amid future contracts rollover on investor concerns for prevailing noise, said analyst Ahsan Mehanti. Late session support witnessed in selected cement, banking and pharma stocks on rising local cement prices, upbeat financial results and levy of higher regulatory import duties. Concerns for economic uncertainty and falling reserves played a catalyst role in bearish close, he added.

The sectors that contributed to the index in negative were commercial banks shed 133 points, cement eroded 35 points, fertiliser took away 31 points, while pharmaceuticals added 21 points, tobacco 13 points and oil & gas marketing companies contributed 6 points to the index gain, said AHL Data report.

Average market volumes were down by 4.7 percent DoD, to 133.23 million shares, whereas the traded value was up 14.6 percent at Rs8 billion/DoD at $75.4 million. Volume leaders for today were SNGPL (due to higher than expected financial results and dividends), KEL, PAEL, TRG and POWER with 33.6 percent contribution to the index’s total volume.

The stocks that remained positive include SNGPL added 34 points, DWAH 20 points, PPL 18 points, PAKT 13 points and SEARL added 12 points to the index gain. On the contrary, the stocks that were negative included MCB shed 55 points, ENGRO detracted 42 points, HBL eroded 28 points, OGDC shed 24 points and PSO took away 23 points from the index. Symbols of total 362 active companies were traded in the session of which 101 closed in advance, 235 in decline while 26 remained unchanged.