PSX extends correction for third day, loses 199 points

KARACHI: The Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) extended correction for the third session in a row on Monday due to political developments, with the benchmark KSE-100 Index losing 199.46 points (-0.41 percent) to close at 48,386.25 points.
The market opened on a positive note and remained in the green territory during the first half of trading and touched the day’s high. However, the profit-taking activity began soon after the benchmark index crossed the 49,000 points level. During the first two hours’ trading, the KSE-100 Index breached the 49,000 points mark thrice but failed to sustain over it and the indices started paring gains.
It will be interesting to see how the bourse behaves in the backdrop of former prime minister Imran Khan’s arrest in the coming days. Though the market was expecting Khan’s arrest and it was built in, a major impact is highly unlikely unless there are widespread protests. This week is also particularly interesting as the interim government will also be announced and it is yet to see how the stock market welcomes the caretaker set-up, which is expected to be installed in the second half of this week. The appointment of a pro-market person as caretaker prime minister will improve the investors’ confidence and vice versa.
The benchmark index traded in a range of 758.38 points showing an intraday high of 49,034.92 points and an intraday low of 48,276.54 points. Among other indices, the KSE All Share Index shed 100.54 points (-0.31 percent) to close at 32,216.92 points, while KMI All Share Islamic Index gained 59.54 points (-0.25 percent) to close at 23,625.43 points.
Total volumes traded for the KSE-100 Index increased by 21.63 million shares to 232.03 million shares against 210.40 million shares traded a session earlier. The overall market volumes increased by 50.73 million shares to 381.86 million shares against 331.13 million shares traded a session earlier.
Among scrips, CNERGY topped the volumes with 74.5 million shares, followed by PRL (35.71 million) and OGDC (26.01 million). Stocks that contributed significantly to the volumes included CNERGY, PRL, OGDC, TPLP and PPL, which formed over 44 percent of total volumes.
A total of 351 companies traded shares in the stock exchange against 336 a session earlier, out of which shares of 103 closed up, shares of 223 closed down while shares of 25 companies remained unchanged. A total of 96 companies traded shares in the KSE-100 Index against 95 a session earlier, out of which share price of 28 companies closed up, 63 closed down and five remained unchanged.
The number of total trades increased by 16,967 to 168,520 against 151,553 trades in the previous session, while the value traded increased by Rs2.03 billion to Rs14.53 billion as compared to the previous session.- TLTP