Stocks falter on profit-taking in weekend session

KARACHI: The stock market remained range-bound on Friday as investors opted for profit taking following the recent rise in share prices, said Arif Habib Ltd.

Even though the benchmark KSE-100 index opened in the positive zone, lacklustre activity pulled the index down by as much as 321 points in intraday trading. The trading volume remained dry on the main board while healthy activity was witnessed in third-tier stocks.

Profit-taking appears to be in response to the staff-level agreement of Pakistan with the International Monetary Fund on the combined seventh and eighth reviews. The positive news triggered a rally in the shares market in the outgoing week, which recorded an increase in the average daily traded volume and value by 97 per cent and 113 per cent on a week-on-week basis.

The KSE-100 index settled at 42,074.91 points, down 274 points or 0.65pc from a day ago.

The trading volume decreased 38.5pc to 140.1 million shares while the traded value went down 27.7pc to $25.5m on a day-on-day basis.

Stocks contributing significantly to the traded volume included Pak Elektron Ltd (12m shares), Utility Foods Ltd (8.96m shares), Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Ltd (5.91m shares), WorldCall Telecom Ltd (5.55m shares) and Cnergyico PK Ltd (5.5m shares).

Sectors that took away the highest number of points from the benchmark index included commercial banking (69.72 points), oil and gas exploration (55.1 points), cement (45.66 points), engineering (21.45 points) and fertiliser (19.62 points).

Shares contributing most negatively to the index included MCB Bank Ltd (27.76 points), Oil and Gas Development Company Ltd (22.23 points), United Bank Ltd (21.68 points), Pakistan Petroleum Ltd (19.47 points) and TRG Pakistan Ltd (18.66 points).

Stocks that contributed most positively to the index included Pakistan State Oil Company Ltd (22.59 points), Pakistan Tobacco Company Ltd (9.41 points), Systems Ltd (6.79 points), Attock Petroleum Ltd (6.73 points) and Habib Metropolitan Bank Ltd (5.93 points).

Foreign investors were net buyers as they purchased shares worth $0.79m.