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KARACHI: Bears put an end to a days-long bull run on Friday after an inordinate delay in the revival of the loan programme with the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Arif Habib Ltd said the benchmark of representative shares opened in the negative zone and stayed in the same territory throughout the day following overnight reports that the staff-level agreement between the government and the IMF would take some time.
The delay in the finalisation of the agreement encouraged bears, which pulled down the index by 803.37 points in intraday trading. The exploration and production sector remained in the spotlight because of the proposed circular debt settlement plan.
As a result, the KSE-100 index settled at 41,741.78 points, down 724.81 points or 1.71 per cent from the preceding session.
The overall trading volume decreased 5.3pc to 281.9 million shares. The traded value went up 22.4pc to $54.6m on a day-on-day basis.
Stocks contributing significantly to the traded volume included Oil and Gas Development Company Ltd (38.7m shares), Pakistan Petroleum Ltd (28m shares), WorldCall Telecom Ltd (27.4m shares), the Hub Power Company Ltd (15.7m shares) and Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Ltd (12.8m shares).
Sectors contributing the most to the index performance were exploration and production (-199.8 points), fertiliser (-98.3 points), commercial banking (-97.9 points), power generation and distribution (-81.9 points) and cement (-75.1 points).
Companies registering the biggest increases in their share prices in absolute terms were Colgate-Palmolive Pakistan Ltd (Rs99.36), Sapphire Textile Mills Ltd (Rs71.62), Rafhan Maize Products Company Ltd (Rs70), Lucky Core Industries Ltd (Rs33.04) and Gatron Industries Ltd (Rs23.74).
Companies that recorded the biggest declines in their share prices in absolute terms were Nestle Pakistan Ltd (Rs93.32), Reliance Cotton Spinning Mills Ltd (Rs52.50), Mari Petroleum Company Ltd (Rs35.16), Sapphire Fibres Ltd (Rs26) and Lucky Cement Ltd (Rs15.98).
Foreign investors were net buyers as they purchased shares worth $0.82m.
Published in Dawn, February 11th, 2023
