KARACHI:
The Pakistan Stock Exchange continued to see share sell-off for a fourth successive day on Friday as the KSE-100 index shed 227 points in a lacklustre session.
Although the rupee staged a partial recovery during the day, the steep depreciation of the currency over the past few days shattered investor confidence. Profit-booking remained evident throughout the session as investors offloaded their holdings.
Following a brief open in the positive zone, the market began its descend and entered the negative territory. A few attempts made to wipe out the losses proved futile and first half of the session ended with a drop in the KSE-100 index.
The second half began with a further dip, but market participants cherry-picked stocks, which helped lift the index upwards. The buying spell erased some of the losses by the session’s end.
At close, the benchmark KSE-100 index recorded a decrease of 226.74 points, or 0.48%, to settle at 47,136.53.
Arif Habib Limited, in its report, stated that the market traded range bound between +124 points and -374 points, closing the session down by 227 points.
The rollover week took its toll on the market, besides disappointment over some financial results and depreciation of the rupee against the US dollar.
Selling pressure was evident in cement, steel and power sectors, the report said.
JS Global analyst Neelum Naz said that the downtrend continued at the stock exchange for the fourth day on Friday with across-the-board profit-taking.
The market sustained the psychological support level of 47,000 points as it rebounded from a low of 46,869 to close in the red zone at 47,137 points, she said.
“Going forward, we recommend investors to adopt a buy-on-dip strategy in bank, steel and textile sectors,” the analyst added.
Overall trading volumes rose to 382.4 million shares compared with Thursday’s tally of 360.8 million. The value of shares traded during the day was Rs13.3 billion.
Shares of 469 companies were traded. At the end of the day, 128 stocks closed higher, 324 declined and 17 remained unchanged.
WorldCall Telecom was the volume leader with 31.6 million shares, losing Rs0.05 to close at Rs3.22. It was followed by K-Electric with 26.4 million shares, losing Rs0.02 to close at Rs3.7 and Byco Petroleum with 20.1 million shares, losing Rs0.2 to close at Rs9.44.
Foreign institutional investors were net sellers of Rs366.6 million worth of shares during the trading session, according to data compiled by the National Clearing Company of Pakistan.
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