KARACHI: The Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) witnessed a range-bound session on Wednesday, with the benchmark KSE-100 Index shedding 6.62 points (-0.02 percent) to close at 43,846.87 points.
The market opened on a positive note and remained in the green zone for the first hour of the session. However, later the market remained volatile and succumbed to profit-taking activity as the nervousness was prevailing across the board due to lack of positive triggers.
The KSE-100 Index moved in a range of 486.2 points, showing an intraday high of 44,139.2 points and a low of 43,653 points.
A total of 356 companies traded shares in the stock exchange, out of them shares of 133 closed up, shares of 200 closed down while shares of 23 companies remained unchanged. Out of 95 traded companies in the KSE-100 Index, 36 closed up, 56 closed down and three remained unchanged.
The overall market volumes increased by 3.80 million to 233.18 million shares. Total volumes traded for the KSE-100 Index decreased by 15.84 million shares to 73.49 million shares. The number of total trades decreased by 6,424 to 101,662, while the value traded decreased by Rs1.37 billion to Rs7.01 billion. Overall market capitalisation decreased by Rs11.50 billion.
Among scrips, HASCOL topped the volumes with 57.47 million shares, followed by TELE Â (21.82 million) and TREET (11.11 million). Stocks that contributed significantly to the volumes include HASCOL, TELE, TREET, UNITY, and BYCO, which formed around 47 percent of total volumes.
The major sectors taking the index toward south were cement with 83 points, fertilizer with 32 points, pharmaceuticals with 14 points, engineering with 13 points, and refinery with 10 points. The most points taken off the index were by LUCK which stripped the index of 36 points followed by ENGRO with 24 points, MEBL with 18 points, HMB with 16 points, and PIOC with 11 points.
The major sectors taking the index toward north were technology & communication with 103 points, oil & gas exploration companies with 43 points, commercial banks with 16 points, power generation & distribution with 8 points, and automobile assembler with 3 points. The most points added to the index were by TRG which contributed 73 points followed by MARI with 30 points, SYS with 27 points, UBL with 23 points, and OGDC with 13 points.
