KARACHI: The Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) held a volatile session today (Monday) and ended the trading session on a negative note.
“The market braced the impact of the Asia Pacific Group’s decision to maintain Pakistan’s position on ‘Enhanced Follow-up List’, which was primarily an evaluation based on Pakistan’s performance as of February 2020,” said a report issued by AHL Ltd.
“The index, which started the day positively, all of a sudden felt quite heavy to retail investors, who considered it best to book profit and close positions,” it added.
The KSE-100 Index started the day on a positive note, recording it’s intraday high 41,047.46 after gaining 249.03 points. Failing to sustain the gains the index toppled to day’s low of 40,149.78 losing 648.65 pts. It finally settled lower by 588.61 points at 40,209.82.
Among other indices, the KMI-30 Index plunged 1,099.20 points to end at 64,171.45, while the KSE All Share Index lost 362.66 points to close at 28,511.39.
The overall market volumes were recorded at 376.40 million shares (+5pc). The average traded value also increased by 8pc, from $72.8 million to $79 million.
Power Cement Ltd (POWER -5.25pc), Hascol Petroleum Ltd (HASCOL -6.35pc) and TRG Pakistan Ltd (TRG -6.88pc) led the volume chart, exchanging 50.58 million, 41.84 million and 23.44 million shares, respectively.
Sectors that pulled the benchmark index lower included oil & gas exploration (-98.30 points), cement (-84.89 points) and banking (-72.15 pts).
Among the companies, Oil and Gas Development Company Ltd (OGDC -44.96 points), Habib Bank Ltd (HBL -38.17 points) and Hub Power Company Ltd (HUBC -37.86 points) dented the index the most.
Shedding 5.20pc from its cumulative market capitalization, the refinery sector ended as the session’s top loser, with Byco Petroleum Pakistan Ltd (BYCO -4.42pc), National Refinery Ltd (NRL -6.22pc), Attock Refinery Ltd (ATRL -6.30pc) and Pakistan Refinery Ltd (PRL -6.14pc) posting significant losses.
