Zubair Yaqoob
Karachi
Market opened on a positive note on Wednesday with +114pts but couldn’t sustain selling pressure, which brought the index down in negative territory and witnessed a decline of 317pts. The index made some recovery by the end of session and closed -264pts. Banks, Cement and E&P stocks weathered selling pressure regardless of international crude oil prices. Fertilizer stocks traded no different than the rest and saw decline in stock prices. Among Banks, HBL saw low prices due to MSCI rebalancing and concerns among investors about a possible exit. Technology stocks managed to post the highest volumes with 28.9M shares, followed by O&GMCs (28.2M) and Cement (24.1M). Among scrips, HASCOL topped with 23.8M shares, followed by UNITY (20.4M) and TRG (14.5M). The Index closed at 33,728pts as against 33,993pts showing a decline of 265pts (-0.8% DoD). Sectors contributing to the performance include Banks (-99pts), Cement (-53pts), E&P (-39pts), Fertilizer (-34pts), Power (-34pts).
