KARACHI: Following the massive decline a day ago, the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) extended its fall, though at a slower pace on Tuesday.
Global equity markets, on the other hand, witnessed a positive trend, whereas crude oil prices also moved north from the previous close; WTI crude price rising 1.67pc to $40.09 while Brent crude oil price increasing 1.39pc to $42.30.
“The market continued with the downtrend trend after yesterday’s attrition on account of FATF concerns, which was further worsened by an uptick in inflation numbers. Although the index lost over 550 points intraday, it partly recovered by the end of session,” said a report issued by AHL Ltd. “Selling was observed almost across the board, with the exception of PSO, HBL, UNITY, KEL which traded positive for the most part of the session.”
MARKET SUMMARY
The benchmark KSE-100 Index remained in the red almost the entire session, recording its intraday low at 39,645.73 after losing 564.09 points. Failing to recover the losses, it settled lower by 203.15 points at 40,006.67.
Among other indices, the KMI-30 Index lost 396.29 points to end at 63,775.16, while the KSE All Share Index dropped 139.27 points to close at 28,372.12.
The overall market volumes fell from 376.40 million shares in the previous session to 290.07 million shares (-23pc). Average traded value also declined by 24pc, from $78.9 million to $ 59.9 million. Hascol Petroleum Ltd (HASCOL -0.96pc), TRG Pakistan Ltd (TRG +1.89pc) and Unity Foods Ltd (UNITY +2.33pc) topped the volume chart, exchanging 43.89 million, 28.53 million and 19.12 million shares, respectively.
Sectors that drove the index south included oil & gas exploration (-68.28 points), banking (-31.90 points) and fertilizer (-30.48 points). Among the companies, Hub Power Company Ltd (HUBC -31.70 points), Pak Petroleum Ltd (PPL -26.53 points) and Oil and Gas Development Company Ltd (OGDC -24.09 points) dented the index the most.
Shedding 1.51pc from its cumulative market capitalization, the oil & gas exploration ended as the session’s top loser, with OGDC (-1.61pc), PPL (-1.99pc), Pakistan Oilfields Ltd (POL -0.87pc) and Mari Petroleum Company Ltd (MARI -1.00pc) posting significant losses.
Meanwhile, KSB Pumps Company Ltd (KSBP +0.28pc) announced its financial performance for the third quarter of FY20. The company’s sales inched up by 4.53pc YoY; distribution cost surged by 15.72pc; whereas finance cost fell by 43.3pc. Its earnings per share improved from Rs0.48 in 3QFY19 to Rs2.74.
