KARACHI: The stock market saw heavy bleeding for the third consecutive session on Thursday. The KSE-100 index suffered a loss of 554.81 points (1.08 per cent) to close at 50,957 points.

The cumulative index losses in the last three days stood at 1,890 points. Market participants who tried to calm the investors mentioned that the index opened on a positive note on Thursday with intraday gains of 59 points.

Analysts said the mid-day heavy-selling was triggered by the sell-off on the global markets. The index hit intraday low of 636 before bouncing back slightly. Foreign investors sold-off equity worth $6.88 million.

Investors were disappointed the PSX did not mimic the reaction of Dubai and Qatar equity markets, which had rallied 90pc and 46pc from MSCI inclusion in Emerging Market announcement (June 11, 2013) till the actual inclusion (June 1, 2014). The inclusion date of Pak­­istan in MSCI EM is June 1.

Trading activity thinned as volumes declined 19pc over the previous day to 302 million shares, while traded value plunged 33oc to Rs12.1 billion, from Rs18.1bn. It was explained by the heavy participation by second and third tier stocks, which dominated the volume leaders’ list.

According to analyst Adnan Sami Sheikh at Topline Securities, negative contribution of 281 points came from UBL which lost 3.1pc, HUBC 3.7pc, ENGRO 2.1pc, PPL 2.5pc and MCB 2.2pc, while Nestle rose 3.6pc, ICI 4.7pc, PAKT 2.9pc, INDU 1.1pc and PICT 3.4pc adding 67 points.

On the sector front, banks shed 185 points, E&P’s 86 points and cement 77 points from. On the flip side, food scrips gained 28 points.

Published in Dawn, May 19th, 2017