KARACHI: The Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) on Friday extended its losses and retreated around 600 points on the last day of week in the absence of major positive triggers.
The benchmark KSE-100 index kicked off trading on a positive note, however, bears soon took charge of the bourse, which then stayed in the red for the rest of the trading session. At close, the benchmark KSE-100 index recorded a decrease of 600.76 points, or 1.34%, to settle at 44,262.35 points.
Overall trading volumes rose to 293.7 million shares compared with Thursday’s tally of 280.7 million. The value of shares traded during the day was Rs13.8 billion. Shares of 367 companies were traded. At the end of the day, 84 stocks closed higher, 273 declined and 10 remained unchanged.
Sectors contributing to the performance included technology (-133 points), cement (-60 points), exploration and production (-50 points), oil and gas marketing companies (-46 points) and banks (-42 points).
Stocks that contributed negatively were TRG Pakistan (-105 points), Hubco (-30 points), Systems Limited (-28 points), NBP (-24 points) and National Refinery (-23 points).
A day ago, the bourse had dropped nearly 200 points. Investors reacted with panic to the surging coronavirus cases, opting to offload shares on fears of a complete lockdown in Pakistan.
