KARACHI: The Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) witnessed fourth consecutive trading day of bearish session on Thursday with the benchmark KSE-100 Index plunging 266 points, or 0.66 per cent, to close at 40,237 points.
The stocks recorded the highest trading level of 40791.91 points and lowest level of 39834.10 points, with the volume of 138 million shares and value of Rs6.12 billion. As many as 373 companies were active; of which 76 advanced,281 declined and 16 remained unchanged.
K-Electric was the volume leader with 13.51 million shares, adding Rs0.02 to reach Rs6.30. It was followed by TRG Pak Ltd with 8.21 million shares, losing Rs0.95 to end at Rs33.34 and Aisha Steel Mill with 7.31 million shares, shedding Rs0.55 to close at Rs16.50.
The top three gainers were Unilever Foods with price per share of 6800 (240), Nestle Pakistan with price per share of 13000 (101) and Pak Tobacco of 1570 (72.37).
The top three losers were Sanofi-Aventis with price per share of 1549.45 (-81.55), Wyeth Pak Ltd with price per share of 1635 (-45) and Mari Petroleum share of 1449.42 (-24.09).
Earlier, the stocks started trading on positive note after adding 283 points to reach 40786 points level in early trading. The downward journey continued at the Pakistan Stock Exchange till midday as the benchmark 100-index dropped 278.33 points to reach 40225 point level.
On Wednesday, the PSX remained volatile throughout the day and the 100-share index shed another 107 points and closed at 40,503 points.
Index point losers included MARI (down 4.7%), SNGP (4.2%), FFC (2.2%), LUCK (1.6%) & KTML (4.4%), eroding 115 points; while PSEL (up 4.5%), HBL (0.3%), UBL (0.8%), POL (1.3%) & INIL (2.8%) added 79 points.
Mixed sentiment were witnessed in the cement sector where KOHC (up 2.76%), LUKC (0.02%), DGKC (0.31%) closed positive and on the flipside FCCL (down 0.43%), MLCF (0.88%) and PIOC (0.74%) closed in the red zone.
Market volumes also remained low at 129m shares, 30% down from the last trading day. While traded value also declined to Rs5.3b/$51m. KEL remained volume leader with 12m shares exchanging hands. Symbols of 387 active companies were traded in the session of which 223 finished in decline, 127 in advance while 17 remained unchanged.