KARACHI: The Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) opened Friday’s session on a bearish note, with the benchmark KSE-100 Index coming under selling pressure after extending its bullish run in the previous session, as investors appeared to book profits ahead of the weekend.
The weak start followed Thursday’s strong performance, when the benchmark index climbed nearly one per cent, supported by broad-based buying across key sectors and renewed optimism over Pakistan’s improving macroeconomic outlook.
At the opening bell on Friday, the KSE-100 Index plunged 1,050.58 points, or 0.58pc, to 180,726.01, with declining stocks comfortably outnumbering gainers.
Market data showed 150 stocks declining against 121 advancing, while 292 issues remained unchanged.
Trading activity remained moderate during the opening minutes, with more than 14.51 million shares changing hands in 9,493 transactions, generating a turnover of Rs802.9 million.
The selling pressure, however, eased over the next five minutes as bargain hunters emerged in select heavyweight stocks.
By 9:25am, the benchmark had recovered a large part of its losses and was down 271.80 points (0.15pc) at 181,504.79.
Market breadth also improved, with 172 advancing stocks edging past 156 decliners, while trading volume rose to 36.14 million shares worth Rs1.94bn.
The recovery proved short-lived. Fresh selling resurfaced by 9:30am, dragging the KSE-100 Index lower by 728.17 points (0.40pc) to 181,048.42.
Despite the renewed weakness, the market remained relatively balanced, with 187 advancing stocks against 180 declining, suggesting that selling was concentrated in a number of heavyweight index constituents rather than spread uniformly across the market.
By 9:30am, more than 51.66 million shares had been traded in 28,713 transactions, with the value of shares traded exceeding Rs2.70bn.
The broader market also traded in negative territory. The All Share Index fell 280.10 points (0.26pc), while the KSE-30, KMI-30 and BKTI indices declined 0.50pc, 0.47pc and 0.40pc, respectively.
Although no immediate market-specific trigger for Friday’s early decline was apparent. Analysts however said the weakness was likely the result of profit-taking after the market’s recent rally, with some investors opting to reduce exposure ahead of the weekend.
They cautioned, however, that it was too early to attribute the decline to any single factor, as market direction could still change during the course of the trading session depending on institutional flows and investor sentiment.
Despite the early setback, analysts noted that the benchmark index remained comfortably above the 181,000-point level for most of the opening session, suggesting that the broader bullish trend has not yet been decisively broken, although volatility is likely to persist in the near term.
