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KARACHI: Pakistan Stock Exchange dived on Wednesday as the benchmark KSE-100 index dropped over 400 points in intra-day trading ahead of the announcement of the federal budget.
The government will release the survey report on June 10 and unveil the budget for fiscal year 2021-22 on June 11. It will be the third budget and is expected to levy new taxes which prevented investors from taking fresh positions.
The KSE-100 index failed to sustain the 48,000-point mark in intra-day trading. At close, the benchmark KSE-100 index recorded a decrease of 370.36 points, or 0.77%, to settle at 47,777.62.
Trading began on a positive note but the optimism was overshadowed by the development which caused uncertainty among the stock market. The market remained under pressure with a total loss of 422 points.
The stock came down from the intra-day high to trade below previous day’s closing price for the session. Selling pressure was observed in exploration and production, steel, cement, oil and gas marketing, refinery and technology sectors.
Sectors contributing to the performance included banks (-95 points), exploration and production (-68 points), technology (-55 points), cement (-42 points) and power (-33 points).
Stocks that contributed significantly to the volumes included WorldCall Telecom, Hum Network, K-Electric, Kapco and Pakistan Telecommunication Company, which accounted for 69% of the volumes.
Individually, stocks that contributed positively to the index were Indus Motor (+19 points), Engro Fertilisers (+8 points), Pakistan Telecommunication Company (+7 points), Unity Foods (+6 points) and PSX (+5 points).
Stocks that contributed negatively were TRG Pakistan (-48 points), Oil and Gas Development Company (-36 points), Pakistan Petroleum (-23 points), HBL (-23 points) and Kot Addu Power Company (-20 points).
Selling pressure was mainly noted in banks and cement companies, among which Cherat Cement (-2.7%), Kohat Cement (-1.3%), Pioneer Cement (-1.1%), HBL (-1%), ABL (-0.9%) and Bank AL Habib (-1%) closed in the negative zone.
In the exploration and production sector, Oil and Gas Development Company (-2.5%), Pakistan Petroleum (-1.6%), and Pakistan Oilfields (-0.2%) were in the red.
The auto sector closed on a positive note where Ghandhara Nissan (+2.9%), Hinopak Motors (+3.1%) and Indus Motor (+4.7%) moved higher. Overall trading volumes surged to 1.35 billion shares compared with Tuesday’s tally of 1.04 billion. The value of shares traded during the day was Rs23.2 billion.
Shares of 416 companies were traded. At the end of the day, 130 stocks closed higher, 274 declined and 12 remained unchanged. WorldCall Telecom was the volume leader with 716.8 million shares. It was followed by Hum Network with 75.9 million shares, gaining Rs0.27 to close at Rs8.69 and K-Electric with 59.6 million shares.
