KARACHI: The Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) Monday remained under pressure over the prevailed political uncertainty and closed almost flat after shedding 6.55 points to drop to 42743.65 points level.
The stocks recorded the highest trading level of 43087.07 points and lowest level of 42628.37 points, with the volume of 126 million shares and value of Rs6.91 billion. As many as 364 companies were active; of which 124 advanced, 218 declined and 22 remained unchanged.
Aisha Steel Mill was the volume leader with 7.82 million shares, adding Rs0.12 to reach Rs19.29. It was followed by K-Electric Ltd with 7.27 million shares, adding Rs0.04 to end at Rs6.31 and Fauji Fert with 6.36 million shares, gaining Rs3.90 to close at Rs82.40.
The top three gainers were Sapphire Tex with price per share of 2037 (94.48), Island Textile with price per share of 984.99 (42.01) and AL-Ghazi Tractors of 611.50 (29.11).
The top three losers were Sapphire Fiber with price per share of 1041.35 (-54.80), Khyber Tobacco with price per share of 740 (-30) and Hinopak Motor share of 1096 (-25.55).
Earlier, the stocks started new week on positive note and crossed the psychological barrier of 43,000 points after adding 303.62 points to reach 43053.82 points level in early trading. The Pakistan Stock Exchange dropped all the early gains and became flat till midday as the benchmark 100-index shed 6 points to reach 42744 points level.
Last week, the positive momentum helped the market record gains during the first three trading days aided by news of US and Pakistan agreeing to resume bilateral talks.
However, the bourse failed to sustain the rally as profit-taking was witnessed on Thursday over news that the Lahore High Court has ordered the Punjab government to make the Model Town incident report public. There were also media reports circulating during the week that the finance minister has decided to step down from his position. This all coincided with strong technical resistance of the benchmark KSE-100 index at around 43,500, with the index finally closing at 42,750 points (down 0.1 percent WoW).
Key sectors that outperformed were refineries (+4 percent WoW) and fertilizers (+3 percent WoW), whereas sectors that underperformed were cements (-3 percent WoW) and oil & gas exploration (-1 percent WoW). The overall activity at the bourse improved as the average daily volumes and traded value picked up to reasonable levels of 171m shares/day (+9 percent WoW) and $85m/day (+3 percent WoW), respectively. Key buyers were banks/DFIs with net buying of $2.6m, while foreigners were also net buyers of $0.4m during the week.
Top KSE-100 index point contributions came from DAWH (+9 percent WoW), MCB (+4 percent), FFC (+6 percent), NESTLE (+4 percent) & UBL (+4 percent) which added 298pts; while HBL (-5 percent), LUCK (-4 percent), MEBL (-8 percent), SNGP (-5 percent), & OGDC (-2 percent) withheld 337pts.
On the sector front, refinery was up 4 percent WoW led by NRL (+5 percent) & ATRL (+6 percent), pharmaceuticals & fertilizer gained 3 percent apiece, while food was up 2 percent. On the flip side, cements shed 3 percent, E&Ps were down a percent while banks were flat (-0.3 percent).
During the outgoing week, insurance companies loaded up $4.2m worth of Pak equities, while mutual funds offloaded $4.5m. Foreigners remained on the sidelines with net buying of only $0.4m as compared to buying of $27.7m last week. Foreign buying was concentrated in fertilizer ($4.8m) in line with the global rally sparked by higher prices, followed by OMCs ($1.7m) & cement ($1.6m), while foreigners sold $4.2m worth of E&P’s followed by power ($1.4m).