Staff Reporter
Karachi
Bears held the ground at the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) on Wednesday as the market endured another round of selling with the benchmark KSE-100 index dropping about 60 points.
Stocks continued to face selling pressure despite the announcement by the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) that the Monetary Policy Committee would meet on September 21 to decide on the next monetary policy. A brief stay of the KSE-100 index in the green was fuelled by investors’ expectation of a status quo in the monetary policy statement. During the course of trading, the KSE-100 hit intraday low of 42,109.20 points, before recouping some losses, but it still ended the day in the red.
At close, the benchmark KSE-100 index recorded a decrease of 64.14 points, or 0.15%, to close at 42,282.28 points.
Selling pressure was observed on banks, oil and gas marketing companies, pharmaceutical and steel sectors. Fertiliser and cement sectors, however, performed well in anticipation of an increase in fertiliser and cement prices.
The power sector topped the volumes with trading in 82.7 million shares, followed by cement firms (65.6 million) and banks (54 million).
Individually, stocks that contributed positively to the index included Engro Corporation (+41 points), Lucky Cement (+20 points), Dawood Hercules (+19 points), Fauji Fertiliser (+15 points) and Systems Limited (+11 points).
Stocks that contributed negatively were HBL (-28 points), Pakistan Tobacco (-18 points), Hubco (-16 points), UBL (-15 points) and Pakistan State Oil (-13 points).
