LAHORE: Pakistan Stock Exchange’s (PSX) northbound journey started last year in December but halted for some profit taking, to close 235 points down or 0.5 per cent. A weak start driven by weak regional sentiment led to profit taking across many sectors however the journey due south found support at the rising trend line and managed to recoup some of the intraday losses. Market participation for KSE 100 index saw a mixed trend as volume shot up by 13.5 per cent on day on day basis at 319 million shares while turnover declined by 11.59 per cent to 13.7 billion.
Meanwhile, WTI crude oil has broken $ 64/bbl, a fresh 3-year high. This is expected to offer an upside trigger for E&Ps going forward. The energy sector (-0.98 per cent) defied the trend in crude oil prices and closed in red despite seeing an intraday rally in WTI prices which saw its active contract trade above $ 64. Analysts at Citi believe that geopolitical risks such as global supply disruptions (particularly in Iran, Iraq, Libya, Nigeria and Venezuela) could send crude oil prices into the $ 70 to $ 80 range. Meanwhile, UAE has re-iterated that OPEC will stick with production cuts for the rest of the year as the group makes headway toward its goal of clearing an oversupply of crude.
Health care, energy and consumer discretionary took their toll on the overall sentiment with major declines seen in SEARL (-2.11 per cent), SHFA (-3.13 per cent), GLAXO (-1.55 per cent), ABOT (-0.45 per cent), OGDC (-0.93 per cent), POL (-1.26 per cent), PSO (-1.63 per cent), PPL (-0.62 per cent), ATRL (-1.65 per cent), SHEL (-2.04 per cent), NML (-2.27 per cent), KTML (-1.92 per cent), NCL (-4.16 per cent) and HCAR (-0.55 per cent). Industrials came to save the day with positive contribution from TRG (+4.98 per cent) and PAEL (+2.49 per cent).
Financials staged a mixed show with HBL (+0.69 per cent), FABL (+3.34 per cent) and MEBL (+3.15 per cent) closing in green while BAHL (-3.46 per cent), UBL (-0.58 per cent) and NBP (-1.79 per cent) closed on a disappointing note.
Market participation in the KSE 100 index increased to 163.18 million shares (+13.5 per cent on day on day basis). Major contributions to total market volume came from WTL (-2.36 per cent), SSGC (+4.43 per cent) and KEL (-3.61 per cent) churning 58.67 million shares out of the All Share volume of 319.5 million shares.
The KSE 100 index is 15 per cent away from its 52-week low of 37,736.73 reached on December 12 and 18 per cent below its 52-week high of 53,127.24 touched on May 25.
Technically speaking, the KSE 100 index witnessed another bout of profit taking but managed to bounce off trend line support at 43,100. A breach below could test 200EMA (42,930) on daily charts.
