Bears return to PSX as KSE-100 falls 301 points

The Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) saw a muted session on Friday and the KSE-100 Index fell 0.75% as reports circulated that Finance Minister Ishaq Dar has pulled out of his visit to the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) spring meeting shattered investor sentiment.

Talks on resumption of the stalled IMF programme were expected from the visit and hence, the sudden cancellation impacted trading at the PSX.

At close, the KSE-100 Index settled at 40,049.65, a decrease of 301.24 points or 0.75%.

Trading began upward but selling pressure emerged that erased the gain. The market fell steadily for the rest of the day and closed with a loss.

Automobile, cement, chemical, banking and oil sectors saw a selloff and closed in the red.

Sectors pushing the benchmark KSE-100 lower included, oil and gas exploration (96.74 points), fertiliser (56.69 points) and technology and communications (29.76 points).

Volume on the all-share index dropped to 135.1 million from 171.4 million on Thursday while the value of shares traded fell to Rs3.2 billion from Rs5.1 billion recorded in the previous session.

JS Bank was the volume leader with 26.2 million shares followed by WorldCall Telecom with 13.1 million shares and Silk Bank Limited with 10.2 million shares.

Shares of 301 companies were traded on Friday, of which 90 registered an increase, 188 recorded a fall and 23 remained unchanged.