KARACHI: The stock market on Monday came under heavy selling pressure taking the benchmark index below the 45,000 level in the wake of poor law and order situation and a nationwide shutter down call given by religious groups which was also supported by traders and transporters.

In early trade the index lost 693.80 points hitting intraday low of 44,611.83, but mid-session buying helped it trim losses and settled lower by 392.06 points, or 0.87 per cent, at 44,913.57.

Arif Habib Ltd in a report stated that the taking over charge by a new finance minister helped boost investors confidence; however, continued offloading kept the recovery in index in check with a sharp increase in trading volume.

Data released by the National Clearing Company of Pakistan in the evening showed that mutual funds picked up shares worth $1.916m followed by foreign investors who bought shares worth $0.24m, while individuals offloaded equities worth $4.537m.

Among fertiliser sector, Engro Fertiliser announced financial results with a healthy dividend payout that helped the stock perform. Sectors wiping the gains of KSE 100 index included technology and communication sector (127.58 points), banking sector (53.62 points) and power generation and distribution sector (36.27 points).

Major scrips that negatively contributed to index include TRG (126 points), Hubco (31 points), FFC (22 points), HBL (19 points) and PSO (16 points).

The trading volume increased by 109pc to 363.1m shares from 173.5m shares the previous day. The traded value also increased by 47pc to $84.1m as against $57.2m.

Among scrips, Worldcall topped the volumes with 101.4 million shares, followed by Byco (24.2M) and TRG (23.4M). Stocks that contributed significantly to the turnover include WTL (101.4 million shares), Byco (24.2m shares), TRG (23.4m shares), GGL and Telecard, which formed 52pc of total volume.

Published in Dawn, April 20th, 2021