PSX slides 750 points amid lack of confidence

KARACHI: The colour red dominated the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) on Monday, as indices remained volatile and recorded their fresh 52-week lows.

Although the government made an announcement regarding the International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailout, but it had little effect on the investors’ confidence as they continued to remain absent, trigging a selling spree in the market.

The KSE 100 index sank over 1,000 points in intraday trading, falling below the psychological barrier of 36,600. The index touched intraday low of 36,274.25 and after losing 750.36 points, it settled at 36,767.57.

The KMI 30 index closed the day at 62,086.88 after depreciating by 2.07 per cent or 1,314.72 points, while the KSE All Share index declined by 1.59 per cent and settled the day at 27,325.32 after falling short of 442.13 points. Out of the total traded scripts, only 77 advanced while 250 declined.

In a major shuffle, once the index giant holding and the largest market capitalization, the Oil and Gas Development Company Limited (OGDC -0.30 per cent) lost its position to Pakistan Tobacco Company Limited (PAKT -1.38 per cent). OGDC saw a decline of 16 per cent in its market capitalization over the past six months while PAKT swelled the same up by 30 per cent. OGDC’s market capitalization now stands at Rs637,354.82 million as compared to PAKT’s market capitalization of Rs 638,725.00 million.

Trading volumes improved from 135.13 million in the previous session to 165.52 million. TRG Pakistan Limited (TRG -2.40 per cent) led the volume chart with a volume of 16.81 million shares, followed by Unity Foods Limited (UNITY +1.20 per cent) and K-Electric Limited (KEL -1.34 per cent), trading 8.82 million and 7.53 million shares respectively.

TPL Insurance Limited (TPLI +4.55 per cent) released its financial results for the third quarter of Financial Year 2017-18 (3QFY18). An interim cash dividend of Rs2.00 per share was announced by the company. Revenue declined by 4 per cent in the quarter under review whereas earning per share depreciated by nearly 98 per cent from Rs0.45 in the last year to Rs0.01.

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