KARACHI: Save for the initial positive opening, the Pakistan Sock Exchange’s benchmark 100-share index remained in the red all through the day on Monday. It succumbed to selling pressure emanating from uncertainty in the wake of British referendum to exit the European Union, together with Ramazan effect and the usual sell-off close to the end of fiscal year.

The KSE-100 index shed 350 points (0.94 per cent) to settle at 37,040, almost 2,000 points lower than the all-time level posted on June 16.

Foreign investors sold stocks worth $4.02 million. Volume fell 31pc to 163.7m shares over the Friday’s turnover of 237m shares while traded value declined 49pc to Rs7.8bn from Rs15.3bn. K-Electric gained 3.09pc on the back of news reports saying that Shanghai Power has decided to go ahead with its acquisition. Nishat Mills Ltd (NML) continued to decline on fears of Brexit’s impact on local textile companies.

“From sector perspective, exploration and production (E&P), refineries, banks, multi-utilities, steel, textile and glass faced the brunt of Monday’s sell-off, but on the flip side cements stood out as the best performing sector while some autos, telecommunication, power and pharmaceutical names also fared well,” commented analysts at Intermarket Securities.

From contribution to index perspective, major laggards were FML, HBL, MCB, UBL, LUCK, OGDC and FFC, taking away 297 points off index. In contrast, DGKC, KEL, KAPCO and EFOODS added 49 points to the KSE-100 Index.

Analyst Ahsan Mehanti at Arif Habib Corp stated that the stocks fell sharply lower on investors’ fear over likely foreign outflows and weak exports as Brexit fallout.

Analyst Arhum Ghous at JS Global stated that MCB (-2.81pc), UBL (-2.33pc) and LUCK (-2.26pc) were major index movers. OGDC (-1.79pc), PPL (-0.92pc) and POL (-0.65pc) in the E&P sector hammered the index as crude oil prices lost value to close around $45 per barrel level (WTI).

Published in Dawn, June 28th, 2016