KARACHI: The Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) that was breathing fire for the past four sessions saw some cooling on Tuesday.

The benchmark KSE-100 index, which surged 6.9 per cent in just last four sessions from a day before the Supreme Court announced the Panam­agate case verdict, went into a technical correction to the relief of major market players who thought the break-neck rally was unsustainable.

After moving between the intraday high by 193 points and low of 580 points, the index finally pulled back by 327 points (0.65pc) to close at 49,785 points.

Downside contributors were led by Engro which dropped 2.3pc, HUBC 2.5pc, PPL 2.9pc, SEARL 4.9pc and HBL 1pc eroding 225 points.

While INDU rose 5pc, THALL 5pc, PAKT 4.9pc, PSMC 5pc and MTL 2.4pc adding 90.4 points to the index, said dealers at Topline Securities.

“Autos were the standout performers with the sector adding 53 points to the index on the back of outstanding earning results,” traders said.

Mutual funds, which had been the lead buyers of $91.5 million stocks in the four previous sessions, poured another $3.40m in the market. But only after a day of cherry picking, the foreign funds resumed selling.

The volume declined by 5pc over the earlier day to 381m shares while the traded value decreased 15pc to Rs19 billion.

Intermarket Securities stated in its report that continuation of a rollover week also contributed towards moments of volatility and profit-taking at the bourse. “From the sector perspective, health care declined 2.80pc, energy 1.33pc and telecommunication services 1.26pc contributing towards a weak close.”

Published in Dawn, April 26th, 2017