Market watch: KSE-100 experiences roller coaster ride

Benchmark index edges down 15.38 points to settle at 43,250.84

KARACHI:

Pakistan Stock Exchange experienced a roller coaster ride on Tuesday as the KSE-100 index climbed in early hours and plunged in final hours, closing the session marginally down.

Encouraging data of large-scale manufacturing, which depicted growth of 5.46% for July-October 2020, failed to entice market participants to maintain the uptrend till the end of the session.

Earlier, trading kicked off on a positive note and a rally in initial hours helped the KSE-100 index gain close to 400 points. In final hours, however, profit-booking emerged as investors offloaded stocks at a rapid pace, which pulled the market down and wiped out all the gains.

At close, the benchmark KSE-100 index recorded a decrease of 15.38 points, or 0.04%, to settle at 43,250.84 points.

Arif Habib Limited, in its report, stated that the market added another 443 points during the session before facing selling pressure that eroded all the gains and pushed the index down by 140 points.

The movement of 580 points between the intraday high and low was attributed mainly to profit-booking by investors, after a cumulative increase of 4,000 points since dropping to 39,500 points recently.

Exploration and production and cement sectors mostly contributed to the downside, although international crude oil prices remained at Monday’s levels.

Among individual stocks, Pakistan Refinery kept the top slot with trading in 64.3 million shares, followed by Hascol Petroleum (62.5 million) and Azgard Nine (42.6 million), the report said.

JS Global analyst Danish Ladhani said the KSE-100 index closed negative at 43,251 points, down 15 points, after touching high and low of +443 and -140 points, respectively.

Profit-taking in the second half of the session came from institutions, which compelled individuals to square up their positions.

Volume leaders were Pakistan Refinery (-6.4%), Hascol Petroleum (+0.4%), Azgard Nine (+1.4%), Pakistan International Bulk Terminal (+0.1%), Lotte Chemical (+6.6%), Fauji Fertiliser Bin Qasim (+4.3%) and TRG Pakistan (-2.5%), which cumulatively contributed 286 million shares.

Moreover, Hubco (-2.2%), Lucky Cement (-1.7%), Pakistan Petroleum (-2%), Oil and Gas Development Company (-1.5%), Attock Refinery (-6.8%) and Engro Polymer (-3.3%) contributed -151 points to the index’s slide.

 “Moving forward, we expect the market to remain bullish and recommend investors to buy on dips,” the analyst said.

Overall, trading volumes soared to 702.2 million shares compared with Monday’s tally of 629.5 million. The value of shares traded during the day was Rs29.2 billion.

Shares of 418 companies were traded. At the end of the day, 199 stocks closed higher, 201 declined and 18 remained unchanged.

Pakistan Refinery was the volume leader with 64.4 million shares, losing Rs1.45 to close at Rs21.29. It was followed by Hascol Petroleum with 62.9 million shares, gaining Rs0.06 to close at Rs15.68 and Azgard Nine with 42.7 million shares, gaining Rs0.36 to close at Rs26.11.

Foreign institutional investors were net sellers of Rs157.4 million worth of shares during the trading session, according to data compiled by the National Clearing Company of Pakistan.