KARACHI: The KSE-100 Index plunge 728 points in intra-day trading before making some recovery due to continuous depreciation of rupee. The benchmark index was on a steady decline throughout the day as stocks faced across-the-board selling pressure.
It is suspected that Pakistan name will be placed on grey list by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) next week, for failure to restrain terrorism financing which has also made the investors edgy.
The main reason behind such situation is grave foreign selling, which is adding up to negative trend. Furthermore, the trade war between the US and China is increasing on regular basis, a sell-off was witnessed in global markets and its impact was also felt at the Pakistan Stock Exchange.
At close, the benchmark KSE 100-share Index recorded a plunge of 680 points or 1.56% to settle at 43,002.84.
According to data accumulate by the National Clearing Company of Pakistan (NCCPL), overall, trading volumes increased to 136.4 million shares compared with Tuesday’s tally of 123.3 million. The value of shares traded during the day was Rs6.9 billion.
Shares of 342 companies were traded. At the end of the day, 75 stocks closed higher, 242 declined while 25 remained unchanged.
TRG Pakistan was the volume leader with 16.6 million shares, gaining Rs0.03 to close at Rs30.71. It was followed by Lotte Chemical Pakistan with 8.3 million shares, with no change to close at Rs12.41 and Pak Elektron with 6.6 million shares, losing Rs1.71 to close at Rs35.64.
Foreign institutional investors were net sellers of Rs305.1 million worth of shares during the trading session.
Sector-wise data showed major corrosion in commercial banks by 246 points and cements 103 points, including E&P (79 points), food (77 points) and O&GMCs (36 points).
Among the shares that churned out major losses, HBL alone contributing 96 points to the index fall. Nestle hit its ‘lower circuit’, UBL lost 2.7pc, OGDC 2.1pc and Lucky Cement 3.2pc and the four together wiped off 320 points from the index.
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