KARACHI: Stock trading started on Monday with investors exhibiting negative sentiments for shares from a wide range of sectors.

Arif Habib Ltd said share prices dropped and stayed in the red territory throughout the trading session owing to the prevailing political uproar. One of the four provincial assemblies stands dissolved while another provincial legislature is likely to be dissolved soon as part of the opposition’s strategy to force early general elections.

Investors’ participation remained sluggish as the benchmark index made an intraday low of 662.70 points and closed negative at the end of trading. Volu­mes remained dry across the board as well, it said.

As a result, the KSE-100 index settled at 39,720.75 points, down 602.7 points or 1.49 per cent from the preceding session.

The overall trading volume decreased 39.1pc to 105.5 million shares. The traded value went down 30.8pc to $14m on a day-on-day basis.

Stocks contributing significantly to the traded volume included WorldCall Telecom Ltd (8.9m shares), Hascol Petroleum Ltd (7.8m shares), Lotte Chemical Company Ltd (7.6m shares), Pakistan Petroleum Ltd (6.8m shares) and Oil and Gas Development Company Ltd (4m shares).

Sectors contributing negatively to the index performance were exploration and production (132.1 points), technology and communication (97.1 points), cement (63.2 points), fertiliser (57.1 points) and commercial banking (56 points).

Companies registering the biggest increases in their share prices in absolute terms were Shahtaj Textile Ltd (Rs5.90), Archroma Pakistan Ltd (Rs4.92), Noon Sugar Mills Ltd (Rs4.65), JS Global Capital Ltd (Rs4.59) and Hinopak Motors Ltd (Rs4.50).

Companies that recor­d­ed the biggest declines in their share prices in absolute terms were Nestle Pak­­istan Ltd (Rs251), Bata Pakistan Ltd (Rs125.02), Colgate-Palm­olive Pakis­tan Ltd (Rs33.75), Pakis­tan Engi­neer­ing Company Ltd (Rs23) and the Thal Indus­tries Corporation Ltd (Rs17.21).

Foreign investors were net sellers as they offloa­ded shares worth $0.2m.

Published in Dawn, January 17th, 2023