KARACHI: The Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) turned bearish on Thursday amid reports of the first case of Omicron variant of the coronavirus in the country, with the benchmark KSE-100 Index shedding 328.03 points (-0.75 percent) to close at 43,518.84 points.
The market opened on a positive note but remained in the green zone only for the first 25 minutes of the session, and succumbed to selling pressure. The market remained in the negative zone till end of the session as the nervousness was prevailing across the board on the first case of Omicron variant of the coronavirus as well as lack of positive triggers.
The KSE-100 Index moved in a range of 722.9 points, showing an intraday high of 43,996.6 points and a low of 43,273.7 points.
A total of 347 companies traded shares in the stock exchange, out of them shares of 79 closed up, shares of 244 closed down while shares of 24 companies remained unchanged. Out of 94 traded companies in the KSE-100 Index, 17 closed up, 73 closed down and four remained unchanged.
The overall market volumes decreased by 32.68 million to 200.49 million shares. Total volumes traded for the KSE-100 Index increased by 23.91 million shares to 97.40 million shares. The number of total trades increased by 3,947 to 105,609, while the value traded increased by Rs1.74 billion to Rs8.75 billion. Overall market capitalisation decreased by Rs44.90 billion.
Among scrips, TRG topped the volumes with 25.73 million shares, followed by TELE Â (13.28 million) and HASCOL (12.54 million). Stocks that contributed significantly to the volumes include TRG, TELE, HASCOL, PPL, and WTL, which formed around 35 percent of total volumes.
The major sectors taking the index toward south were cement with 125 points, commercial banks with 119 points, pharmaceuticals with 28 points, textile composite with 25 points and power generation & distribution with 18 points. The most points taken off the index were by LUCK which stripped the index of 53 points followed by HBL with 33 points, MEBL with 24 points, DGKC with 19 points and CHCC with 15 points.
The major sectors taking the index toward north were oil & gas exploration companies with 75 points, tobacco with 6 points, chemical with 6 points, fertilizer with 3 points and insurance with 2 points. The most points added to the index were by PPL which contributed 53 points followed by OGDC with 22 points, TRG with 15 points, FFC with 15 points and EPCL with 13 points.
