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KARACHI: Despite the International Monetary Fund (IMF) announcement of a staff-level agreement on the sixth review, the Pakistan Stock Exchange on Monday endured a heavy battering, as the benchmark KSE-100 index plunged 744 points.
The confirmation of a staff-level agreement between Pakistan and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) failed to entice the market participants as investors adopted a “buy-on-rumour-and-sell-on-confirmation strategy.”
Bears were seen haunting the market throughout the day, as jittery investors offloaded their positions amid massive foreign selling. Trading began with a brief rally and the market powered past 46,600 point mark in the initial hour. However, the index was unable to sustain the uptrend.
Shedding 885 points, the KSE-100 Index reached its intraday low of 45,716.60. It eventually closed lower by 744.41 points at 45,745.00. Sectors contributing to the performance include cement (-184 points), technology (-153 points), exploration and production (-90 points), fertiliser (-70 points) and textile composite (-36 points).
Overall trading volumes declined to 261.9 million shares compared with Friday’s tally of 304.21 million. The value of shares traded during the day was Rs10.94 billion.
Shares of 344 companies were traded. At the end of the day, 70 stocks closed higher, 263 declined and 11 remained unchanged.
TRG Pakistan Limited was the volume leader with 22.37 million shares, losing Rs7.74 to close at Rs95.51. It was followed by Byco Petroleum with 21.6 million shares, losing Rs0.21 to close at Rs6.83 and TPL Properties XB with 15.8 million shares, losing Rs0.83 to close at Rs49.46.
