KARACHI: The Pakistan Stock Exchange remained bearish till midday and shed 63.41 points to drop to 43431.66 level on Friday.
The stocks started trading on the last day of week on bearish note and lost 67 points to reach 43428 level in early trading.
Yesterday, the benchmark 100-index closed at level of 43,495 points, witnessing meager growth of 87 points.
Chemical sector is gaining attention of market participants for last two days, where LOTCHEM continued its top position on volume leaders chart (35m shares) as margins of the sector constituents are improving.
E&P scripts added 38 points to index gain as international crude oil price was up by 30 cents. Healthy trading in small cap stocks helped volumetric activity to grow with 11%. Whereas, traded value was down by 16%.
Top 5 stocks including HBL (+1.1%), PIBTL (+6.1%), POL (+1.1%), OGDC (+0.6%) & PAKT (+2.1%) added 93 points to the index gain, whereas stocks including UBL (-1.2%), LUCK (-0.7%), FFC (-0.5%), AICL (-1.7%) & CHCC (-1.7%), withheld 52 points from the index.