KARACHI: The Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) turned bearish on Thursday after seven consecutive positive sessions, with the benchmark KSE-100 Index shedding 325.59 points (-0.72 percent) to close at 45,082.3 points.
The market opened on a negative note and remained bearish throughout the session. The market followed the trend of global markets, which turned bearish after the minutes of the December 14-15 Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting, released on Wednesday, said that most participants judged conditions for a rate hike could be met soon if the recent pace of labour market improvements continued.
The KSE-100 Index moved in a range of 386.57 points, showing an intraday low of 45,021.32 points and a high of 45,407.89 points, the last day closing point.
A total of 370 companies traded shares in the stock exchange, out of them shares of 90 closed up, shares of 263 closed down while shares of 17 companies remained unchanged. Out of 95 traded companies in the KSE-100 Index, 20 closed up, 74 closed down and one remained unchanged.
The overall market volumes decreased by 86.77 million to 345.30 million shares. Total volumes traded for the KSE-100 Index increased by 36.28 million to 133.04 million shares. The number of total trades decreased by 12,693 to 125,826, while the value traded increased by Rs2.95 billion to Rs13.24 billion. Overall market capitalisation decreased by Rs60.11 billion.
Among scrips, WTL topped the volumes with 65.11 million shares, followed by TRG (54.82 million) and UNITYR3 (30.2 million). Stocks that contributed significantly to the volumes included WTL, TRG, UNITYR3, TELE, and YOUW, which formed over 51 percent of total volumes.
The major sectors taking the index toward south were technology & communication with 116 points, cement with 78 points, oil & gas marketing companies with 27 points, food & personal care products with 23 points and commercial banks with 22 points. The most points taken off the index were by TRG which stripped the index of 104 points followed by PSO with 22 points, HBL with 16 points, LUCK with 15 points and OGDC with 15 points.
The major sectors taking the index towards north were power generation & distribution with 54 points, investment banks/ investment companies/ securities companies with 8 points, fertilizer with 8 points, and textile weaving and close-end mutual funds with one point each. The most points added to the index were by HUBC which contributed 56 points followed by POL with 19 points, DAWH with 17 points, EFERT with 16 points and UBL with 10 points.
