KARACHI: Bears made a return to the trading floor of the Pakistan Stock Exchange on Friday as uncertainty around the talks for the revival of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) loan programme drove down share prices.

Arif Habib Ltd said the second half of the trading session saw investors book profits, leading the index of representative shares to make an intraday low of 539.88 points.

The trading volume on the mainboard of the exchange remained reasonable with third-tier companies dominating the volume board.

As a result, the KSE-100 index settled at 38,407.98 points, down 423.60 points or 1.09 per cent from the preceding session.

The overall trading volume decreased 40.8pc to 93.5 million shares. The traded value went down 45.4pc to $15.3m on a day-on-day basis.

Stocks contributing significantly to the traded volume included Pakistan Petroleum Ltd (8.3m shares), WorldCall Telecom Ltd (5.6m shares), Ghani Chemical Industries Ltd (5m shares), Cnergyico PK Ltd (4.1m shares) and TRG Pakistan Ltd (3.9m shares).

Sectors contributing the most to the index performance were commercial banking (-82.1 points), technology and communication (-60.8 points), cement (-58.8 points), exploration and production (-53.4 points) and oil marketing (-41 points).

Companies registering the biggest increases in their share prices in absolute terms were Bhanero Textile Mills Ltd (Rs82), Nestle Pakistan Ltd (Rs50), Colgate-Palmolive Pakistan Ltd (Rs24.98), the Thal Industries Corporation Ltd (Rs20) and JS Global Capital Ltd (Rs13).

Companies that recorded the biggest declines in their share prices in absolute terms were Indus Motor Company Ltd (Rs58.15), Philip Morris Pakistan Ltd (Rs35), Pakistan Engineering Company Ltd (Rs22.83), Mari Petroleum Company Ltd (Rs21.04) and Highnoon Laboratories Ltd (Rs10.99).

Foreign investors were net buyers as they purchased shares worth $0.92m.

Published in Dawn, January 21st, 2023