KARACHI: The Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) shed 195.81 points to close at 41239.89 at first trading day on Monday.
The stocks recorded the highest trading level of 41435.70 points and lowest level of 41141.85 points, with the volume of 87.44 million shares and value of Rs3.72 billion. As many as 347 companies were active; of which 115 advanced, 205 declined and 27 remained unchanged.
TRG Pak Ltd was the volume leader with 13.04 million shares, adding Rs1.36 to reach Rs34.50. It was followed by Azgard Nine with 7.55 million shares, gaining Rs0.12 to end at Rs14.36 and Dost Steels Ltd with 6.99 million shares, adding Rs0.16 to close at Rs13.44.
The top three gainers were Sapphire Tex with price per share of 1859.95 (87.51), Khyber Tobacco with price per share of 1390 (40) and Atlas Honda Ltd of 557.67 (19.44).
The top three losers were Nestle Pakistan with price per share of 11850 (-150), Rafhan Maize with price per share of 6969 (-31) and Mari Petroleum share of 1572.52 (-24.70).
The stocks started new week on bearish note after shedding 99 points to reach 41346 points level in early trading. The bearish note further deepened at the Pakistan Stocks Exchange as the benchmark 100-index dropped 247 points to reach 41189 points level till midday.
Last week the market witnessed some recovery during the outgoing week with KSE-100 index inching up by 0.9 percent WoW to close at 41,436 points.
Mutual Funds during the week bought $17.2 million worth of equities, whereas banks (net selling of $6.6m) and individuals (net selling of $3.2m) continued to offload their positions. Despite bounce back in the market, overall activity remained lackluster with average traded volume and value clocking in at 114 million shares per day (-3 percent WoW) and $60 million per day (-12 percent WoW), respectively.
Cherry-picking in mid-low market cap sectors mostly prevailed with stocks such as SSGC (+7.07 percent WoW), SHFA (+10.65 percent WoW), HCAR (+9.68 percent WoW), DAWH (+9.69 percent WoW) and HASCOL (+5.51 percent WoW) etc garnering investor attention. Heavyweights such as Banks (+0.40 percent WoW), Cements (+0.70 percent WoW), OMCs (+1.77 percent WoW) and Fertilisers (+0.49 percent WoW) gained value.
Stocks including DAWH (10 percent WoW), PPL (2 percent), SEARL (8 percent), MTL (6 percent) and HCAR (10 percent), added 225 points to the index. On the other hand, PAKT (-12 percent), KTML (-10 percent), UBL (-3 percent), MCB (-1 percent) and FATIMA (-3 percent) detracted 115 points from the index. On the sector front; Pharmas and Auto Assemblers gained 3 percent a piece, E&Ps and OMCs gained 2 percent each, Cements gained 1 percent, Banks inched up 0.4 percent, while Textiles shed 1 percent, Insurance was down by 2 percent & Tobacco tanked 10 percent.