Stocks fall on lack of triggers
KARACHI: The stock market remained under pressure for the second day in a row on Wednesday as investors continued offloading their positions amid lack of positive triggers with the result the benchmark KSE 100-index lost 233.75 points, or 0.52 per cent, to close at 45,059.12 points.
Topline Securities Ltd noted in its market report that the trading began on a positive note and the index made an intraday high of 296 points. However, the market didn’t sustain the positivity as the second half witnessed a low of 272 points after ECC deferred summary till next meeting on 40pc payments to independent power producers (IPPs).
Technology stocks saw Netsol performing, whereas TRG declined over the day. Service Global Footwear (SGF) hit the upper circuit on the first day of listing on PSX, but corporate earning announcements failed to reinvigorate investors interest. Major decliners in today’s trading session were financials and E&P sectors as Habib Bank, MCB Bank, OGDC and PPL cumulatively dented the index by 121 points.
Arif Habib Ltd, in its report, said selling pressure was concentrated in banks, E&P, cement and steel sectors similar to what was witnessed on Tuesday and the absence of active buyer exacerbated the situation leading to index closing lower than the previous day’s close.
National Clearing Company Ltd evening data showed barring individuals who bought equities worth $2.10 million, all others were net sellers. Mutual funds sold stocks worth $2.06m, foreigners $1.56m, companies $1.59m and bank $0.45m.
Among scrips, Telecard topped the volume list with 29.3 million shares, followed by Azgard Nine 25.6m shares and TRG 18.3m shares.
Sectors contributing to the index performance negatively included banks (93 points), E&P (44 points), technology (35 points), cement (33 points), pharma (29 points) while fertiliser sector added 30 points.
The trading volume declined 17pc to 305.7m shares from 366.8m shares and the traded value also fell by 7pc to reach $104.6m as against $112.1m.
Telecard, ANL, TRG, Unity Foods and GGGL contributed 33pc to the total turnover.
Stocks that contributed positively to the index include Colgate (24 points), FFC (21 points), NRL (13 points), Engro Corp (13 points) and POL (12 points).
Laggards were led by HBL (39 points), OGDC (36 points), PPL (24 points), MCB Bank (23 points) and TRG (21 points).
Published in Dawn, April 29th, 2021