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KARACHI: The Pakistan Stock Exchange witnessed a range-bound session on Friday, which was the last day of the rollover week when the future contracts are either settled or rolled over to the next month.
Arif Habib Ltd said the index opened in the positive zone but sluggish activity kept it within a small range. In the last trading hour, however, profit-taking took place and led the index to close in the red zone.
Stocks fell after S&P Global Ratings downgraded the outlook on Pakistan, according to Ahsan Mehanti of Arif Habib Corporation. Investors also remained cautious over a weak outlook on the corporate earnings, thanks to the imposition of super tax.
However, some mid-session support was witnessed on the rupee’s recovery on account of the speculations over a current account surplus in July. As a result, the KSE-100 index settled at 40,150.36 points, down 126.28 points or 0.31 per cent from a day ago.
The trading volume decreased 32.2pc to 170.3 million shares while the traded value went down 32.5pc to $26.4m on a day-on-day basis.
Stocks contributing significantly to the traded volume included Unity Foods Ltd (13.93m shares), Lotte Chemical Pakistan Ltd (9.96m shares), Cnergyico PK Ltd (8.72m shares), TRG Pakistan Ltd (8.65m shares) and Telecard Ltd (8.02m shares).
Sectors contributing negatively to the index included fertiliser (69.1 points), cement (36.2 points), chemical (26.7 points), exploration and production (24.7 points) and automobile assembling (18.6 points).
Stocks that contributed most negatively to the index were Fauji Fertiliser Company Ltd (24.73 points), Engro Fertilisers Ltd (20.63 points), Bank AL Habib Ltd (18.97 points), Engro Corporation Ltd (18.64 points) and Thal Ltd (18.56 points).
Shares that contributed the highest number of points to the index were TRG Pakistan Ltd (70.39 points), Bank Alfalah Ltd (36.43 points), Indus Motor Company Ltd (14.98 points), Faysal Bank Ltd (9.29 points) and Packages Ltd (7.87 points).
Foreign investors were net buyers as they purchased shares worth $1.95m.
Published in Dawn, July 30th, 2022
