KARACHI: The Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) remained bearish as the benchmark 100-index shed 396.50 points to drop to 42739.56 points level till midday on Friday.
Earlier, the stocks opened on bearish note and shed 87 points to reach 43049 points level in early trading.
On Thursday, the stocks witnessed bloodbath for the third time in the week, with the benchmark KSE-100 index losing 1,051 points and closing at 43,136 points. Top 5 contributors including HBL (down 3.2%), OGDC (3.5%), POL (5%), MCB (1.9%) & UBL (down 1.7%) contributed 289 points to index decline. Amongst major sectors, major selling was seen in commercial banks (down 2%) as the sector contributed 233 points to index decline. ABL (down 0.60%) from the banking sector announced its result for 1H2017 an EPS of Rs5.75 and DPS of Rs1.75, taking 1H2017 payout to Rs3.5.
Traded volumes were down 11% to 167m shares whereas traded value also declined to Rs8.8b/$84m. ANL from the textile composite sector led the market volume as 11.4 million shares were traded in the market. Scrips of total 367 active companies traded in the session of which only 43 were in advance, 314 were in decline and 10 remained unchanged.