The Karachi stocks market after Thursday’s recovery once again turned bearish and lost 81.27 points on Friday on what the analysts said institutional profit-taking ahead of the central bank’s policy announcement new week.
Last trading day of the week saw the benchmark 100-share index plunging by 0.6 per cent to 11,648.14 points from the previous 11,729.41 points.
“Bearish activity witnessed in stocks across the board on institutional profit-taking ahead of SBP policy announcement next week,” said Arif Habib Investments’ Ahsan Mehanti. The intraday high and low was, respectively, recorded at 11,755.23 and 11,612.17 points, showed the KSE website.
The trading volumes once again nosedived to the record low level of 28 million and was recorded at the ready-counter at 28.176 million shares compared to 50.796 million shares traded on Thursday.
The trading value also depreciated to Rs1.4 billion compared to Rs2.5 billion of the previous day. Of the total 310 scrips traded, 78 advanced, 123 declined and 109 remained unchanged.
The KSE 30 index also remained negative by 126.59 points and closed at 10932.00 having climbed to the intraday high of 11080.58. The lowest dip the index saw during Friday’s session was 10907.75. The trading volume and value, respectively, amounted to Rs15.040 million and Rs1.339 billion. “Major fall in global stocks and commodities on concerns for the US economic growth and Europe debt crises affected the investor sentiment,” Mehanti said. The analyst said the day marked the foreign investors continuation to engage in limited offloading in the blue-chip stocks at the Karachi bourse.
“Trade remained thin despite OGRA announcements for raise in local gas tariff, easing concerns for rising circular debt in the country,” added Mehanti, who is a director at the Arif Habib Securities.
Fauji Fertiliser Bin Qasim was volume leader of the day having counted its traded shares at 3.5 million. The fertiliser giant’s share price set in the red zone with a loss of Rs1.94 to close at Rs56.55.
Other best performers included Bank Al-Falah, Oil and Gas, Azgard Nine, National Bank of Pakistan, Engro Corporation, Fauji Fertilizer XD, Arif Habib Company SD, Jahangir Siddiqui Company and Lotte PakPTA who counted their traded shares at 3.1 million, 1.3 million, 1.3 million, 1.2 million, 1.1 million, 1.1 million, 1.1 million, 1.0 million and 0.788 million.
