A bearish trend ruled the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) on Friday, as its benchmark KSE-100 Index closed lower by 241 points. Investors opted to offload their holdings in the rollover week.
The KSE-100 started the session positive, hitting an intra-day high of 51,269.74. However, the increase was short-lived on profit-taking as the index ended its resistance above the 51,000 level.
At close, the benchmark index closed at 50,943.84, down by 241.44 points or 0.47%.
“The equity market witnessed selling pressure today owing to the culmination of the roll-over week,” brokerage house Ismail Iqbal Securities said in its post-market report.
Technology & communication, oil & gas exploration companies, and oil & gas marketing companies sectors remained the major laggards during the session, it added.
On the other hand, banks added some points to the index on strong results announced during the week.
On Thursday, the KSE-100 had closed flat in a range-bound session.
Meanwhile, the Pakistani rupee witnessed its fifth successive decline against the US dollar as it depreciated 0.17% in the inter-bank market on Friday. As per the State Bank of Pakistan, the local currency settled at 280.57, a decrease of Re0.48.
Volume on the all-share index marginally decreased to 351 million from 364 million a day before.
The value of shares declined to Rs10.6 billion from Rs10.9 billion in the previous session.
K-Electric Ltd remained the volume leader with 45.2 million shares, followed by WorldCall Telecom with 21.8 million shares and B.O.Punjab with 17 million shares.
