The Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) started the week with a roller-coaster session on Monday amid rupee depreciation against the US dollar, with the benchmark KSE-100 Index shedding 255.76 points (-0.57 percent) to close at 44,817.76 points.
The market opened on a positive note but remained volatile throughout the trading session. At one point, the benchmark index shed over 700 points; however, a sharp recovery was witnessed in the last half an hour where the index recovered most of its intra-day losses. The KSE-100 Index moved in a range of 894.5 points, showing an intraday high of 45,236.4 points and a low of 44,341.5 points.
Among other indices, the KSE All Share Index shed 233.4 points (-0.76 percent) to close at 30,544.31 points, while All Share Islamic Index shed 204.14 points (-0.93 percent) to close at 21,723 points.
A total of 375 companies traded shares in the stock exchange, out of them shares of 101 closed up, shares of 259 closed down while shares of 15 companies remained unchanged. Out of 95 traded companies in the KSE-100 Index, 33 closed up, 59 closed down, and three remained unchanged.
The overall market volumes decreased by 68.14 million to 301.39 million shares. Total volume traded for the KSE-100 Index was 162.70 million shares. The number of total trades decreased by 20,388 to 101,455, while the value traded decreased by Rs0.60 billion to Rs11.18 billion. The market capitalisation decreased by Rs58.45 billion.
Among scrips, UNITY topped the volumes with 34.95 million shares, followed by WTL (32.65 million) and BYCO (32.17 million). Stocks that contributed significantly to the volumes include UNITY, WTL, BYCO, HUMNL and BAFL, which formed 40 per cent of total volumes.
The index on a sector-wise basis was let down by commercial banks with 100 points, refinery with 34 points, paper & board with 25 points, investment banks/ investment companies /securities companies with 23 points and pharmaceuticals with 20 points. The most points taken off the index were by TRG which stripped the index of 51 points followed by HBL with 51 points, MEBL with 29 points, UBL with 18 points and PSO with 16 points.
The sectors propping up the index were fertilizer with 19 points, chemical with 11 points, cable & electrical goods with 5 points, oil & gas exploration companies with 2 points and textile spinning with 2 points. The most points added to the index was by SYS which contributed 49 points followed by FFC with 18 points, MTL with 8 points, KTML with 7 points and EPCL with 7 points.
According to Topline Securities, higher international commodity prices coupled with an outstanding futures position of Rs12.48 billion marked as delivery resulted in aggressive selling pressure from the participants.
Analysts at Arif Habib Limited said that market posted gains of 163 points earlier in the session, but faced the onslaught sooner which caused the erosion of these gains and netting a loss of 732 points during the session.
They said that leveraged positions mostly got thrashing; however, resumption of PKR slippage was another reason cited for the panic selling in the market. Volumes remained thin compared with the activity in recent times, where ample volumes were witnessed in blue chips, they added.
