Market watch: Stocks bleed as KSE-100 endures another fall

Benchmark KSE 100-share Index falls 0.99%


Our Correspondent February 27, 2017
PHOTO:FILE

KARACHI:  

The KSE-100 Index’s downward trend continued as stocks across the board came under selling pressure amid political noise and lack of positive triggers.

At close on Monday, the Pakistan Stock Exchange’s (PSX) benchmark KSE 100-share Index finished with a fall of 487.25 points or 0.99% to end at 48,520.75.

Market watch: Index ends negative, but manages to stay over 49,000

Elixir Securities analyst Faisal Bilwani said Pakistan equities closed the first day of the week negative on lacklustre participation with the benchmark KSE-100 Index losing 1% to settle near 48,500.

“Stocks carried bearish momentum from Friday and continued to slip on lack of positive triggers while investors, both institutions and retail, preferred to stay on the sidelines amid anxiety over domestic politics,” said Bilwani.

“Volumes in the wider market were embarrassingly thin with only 250 million shares exchanging hands on the all-shares index vs year-to-date average of over 400 million shares.

“Small cap stocks, namely Aisha Steel Limited (ASL), Lotte Chemical, Bank of Punjab (BOP), led volumes. But dent to the index mainly came from index heavy financials and cements that corrected on reported institutional selling,” said Bilwani.

“Steel makers came under pressure on unconfirmed weekend news of provincial court granting stay order on earlier decision to impose anti-dumping duty on Chinese imports.”

Weekly review: Volatile trading results in KSE-100 losing 0.7%

JS Global analyst Arhum Ghous said the market opened on a positive note where the index made an intraday high of +73 points.

“This positivity was short lived as heavy selling was witnessed across the board, which led the index to close around 48,521 level (down 487 points),” said Ghous.

“Banking sector closed lower than its previous day close as heavy weights HBL (-0.16%), MCB (-0.86%) and UBL (-0.99%) lost value to close in the red zone.

“Selling pressure was witnessed in the cement sector as it lost value to close (-1.4%) lower than its previous day’s close.”

Trading volumes fell to 250 million shares compared with Friday’s tally of 275 million.

Shares of 407 companies were traded. At the end of the day, 65 stocks closed higher, 325 declined while 17 remained unchanged. The value of shares traded during the day was Rs11.5 billion.

ASL was the volume leader with 24.9 million shares, losing Rs1.25 to close at Rs23.80. It was followed Lotte Chemical with 18.5 million shares, gaining Rs0.47 to close at Rs10.51 and BOP with 15 million shares, losing 0.64 to close at Rs14.78.

Foreign institutional investors were net sellers of Rs1.25 billion during the trading session, according to data maintained by the National Clearing Company of Pakistan Limited.

 

 

 

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