KARACHI: The Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) endured a bearish session on the last trading day of the week as the benchmark KSE-100 Index lost 243 points, but not before it recovered from a 642-point fall in intra-day trading.
The benchmark index dipped in the wake of the Financial Action Task Force’s (FATF) decision. Adding fuel to the bearish session was the uncertainty about the ongoing talks between Pakistan and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as the Finance Ministry said that a specific time frame cannot be given for the conclusion of the talks.
The index opened on a positive note, but fell steeply during the first half, losing 642 points in intra-day trading to drop to 45,179.96. However, recovery began soon after with the KSE-100 gradually reaching the 45,500 level.
At close on Friday, the KSE-100 Index settled lower by 243.04 points or 0.53% to end at 45,578.4. Both volume and value of shares traded declined from the previous session.
Volume on the all-share index decreased from 338.32 million on Thursday to 300.69 million on Friday. The value of shares traded also declined, amounting to Rs11.83 billion from Rs13.36 billion on Thursday.
Hum Network was the volume leader with 35.87 million shares, followed by Unity Foods Limited with 22.54 million shares, and WorldCall Telecom with 21.05 million shares.
Shares of 346 companies were traded on Friday, of which 129 registered an increase, 208 recorded a fall, while 9 remained unchanged.
