KARACHI: Share prices on the Pakistan Stock Exchange faced pressure on Tuesday owing to the rollover week in which futures contracts are either settled or rolled over to the next month.

Arif Habib Ltd said even though the index traded in the green zone at the start of the trading session, the stock market was unable to maintain its positive momentum and the benchmark slipped into the red zone.

Many companies made major financial announcements but investors’ participation stayed subdued with trading volumes decreasing across the board. Third-tier equities continued to lead in terms of volumes.

JS Global said it expects the range-bound activity to continue on the PSX.

As a result, the KSE-100 index settled at 42,190.03 points, down 157.2 points or 0.37 per cent from the preceding session.

The trading volume decreased 13.8pc to 195.4 million shares while the traded value went up 3.5pc to $28.4m on a day-on-day basis.

Stocks contributing significantly to the traded volume included Hascol Petroleum Ltd (35.2m shares), WorldCall Telecom Ltd (13m shares), G3 Technologies Ltd-Class B (11m shares), Nishat Chunian Power Ltd (9m shares) and Pakistan Telecommunication Ltd (6.6m shares).

Sectors that contributed negatively to the index performance were technology and communication (111.9 points), cement (46.6 points), automobile assembler (13.8 points), commercial banking (11.9 points) and chemical (10.9 points).

Companies registering the biggest increase in their share prices in absolute terms were Sapphire Fibres Ltd (Rs52.48), Khyber Tobacco Company Ltd (Rs22.79), Siemens Pakistan Engineering Ltd (Rs20.34), Shield Corporation Ltd (Rs19.35) and ICI Pakistan Ltd (Rs14.15).

Shares that declined the most in rupee terms were Bhanero Textile Mills Ltd (Rs32.44), Colgate-Palmolive Pakistan Ltd (Rs24.50), the Thal Industries Corporation Ltd (Rs22.12), Premium Textile Mills Ltd (Rs15.80) and Dynea Pakistan Ltd (Rs13.57).

Foreign investors re­­mained net sellers as they offloaded shares worth $0.25m.

Published in Dawn, October 26th, 2022