Benchmark
KSE-100 index decreases 439.53 points on Friday.
Despite a positive start before the mid-session interval on Friday, bears returned to book whatever profit they had accumulated as the index plunged in the final couple of hours. Global turmoil that has engulfed several markets worldwide was a negative trigger, along with tumbling prices of crude oil. Whatever bullish sentiment existed has been dented by investigations against several brokers, keeping investors at bay.
At close on Friday, the Pakistan Stock Exchange’s benchmark 100-share index fell 1.40% or 439.53 points to end at 31,101.49.
JS Global analyst Arhum Ghous said the index failed to break its bearish streak despite being positive during the opening half.
“Market opened on a positive note and made an intraday high of +196.20 points but failed to sustain the momentum as the index fell to close at 31,001,” said Ghous. “Panic selling was witnessed in the second half as jittery investors offloaded their holdings as crude oil breached the $30 per barrel mark.
“Major losers in the oil sector were POL (-5.0%) and PPL (-4.4%). Provisional anti-dumping duty continues to have its positive impact on the steel sector as ASTL (+2.0%) and MUGHAL (+1.8%) closed in the green zone.”
Meanwhile, Elixir Securities, in its report, stated equities extended their losses and dropped another 1.7% following lower regional markets and continuous slide in crude oil prices.
“Stocks had a positive start in the morning, covering some of yesterday’s losses and ended the opening session in the green,” stated the report. “However, from the onset of the second session, the market lost its ground and KSE-100 index took a nosedive to test levels of 30,900 led by losses in index-heavy oils that tracked fresh declines in global crude prices in anticipation of more supplies from Iran.
“Index heavy Oil & Gas Dev Co (OGDC, -2.17%) breached below its yesterday’s low of Rs100 per share, while Pakistan Oilfields (POL, -5%) closed at lower price limit for a second consecutive session.
“Financials and cements traded lower with former on reported foreign selling, while small caps continued to dent retail investors and tested recent lows.
“We expect the market to be volatile at current levels with investors now tracking local institutional activity on concerns of selling from capital protected funds.”
Trade volumes fell to 138 million shares compared with Thursday’s tally of 190 million shares.
Shares of 331 companies were traded on Friday. At the end of the day, 84 stocks closed higher, 230 declined while 17 remained unchanged. The value of shares traded during the day was Rs6.9 billion.
TRG Pakistan was the volume leader with 19.6 million shares, losing Rs1.39 to finish at Rs26.52. It was followed by Pak Elektron with 7.4 million shares, losing Rs0.95 to close at Rs62.11 and Jahangir Siddique & Company with 6.7 million shares, losing Rs0.81 to close at Rs16.80.
Foreign institutional investors were net sellers of Rs449 million during the trade session, according to data maintained by the National Clearing Company of Pakistan Limited.
Published in The Express Tribune, January 16th, 2016.
Like Business on Facebook, follow @TribuneBiz on Twitter to stay informed and join in the conversation.
COMMENTS
Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive.
For more information, please see our Comments FAQ