KARACHI: Bulls lost to bears on the trading floor of the Pakistan Stock Exchange on Friday owing to the endless foot-dragging on the resumption of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) programme before its expiry on June 30.
Arif Habib Ltd said trading began in the green before the impending IMF deal along with political uncertainty pulled the benchmark index down by the end of the session. Trading remained dry on the mainboard while third-tier equities populated the volume board.
Negative macroeconomic triggers like the mammoth repayments of foreign debt to the tune of $10.3 billion by the end of 2023 also discouraged investors from taking positions.
As a result, the KSE-100 index settled at 40,065.32 points, down 86.73 points or 0.22 per cent from the preceding session.
The overall trading volume increased 17.5pc to 136.9 million shares. The traded value went up 32pc to $11.8m on a day-on-day basis.
Stocks contributing significantly to the traded volume included WorldCall Telecom Ltd (23.2m shares), Unity Foods Ltd (7.4m shares), TPL Properties-JULB (6.2m shares), TRG Pakistan Ltd (5.3m shares) and Panther Tyres Ltd (4.9m shares).
Sectors contributing the most to the index performance were technology and communication (-43 points), commercial banking (-23.3 points), power generation and distribution (-17.1 points), investment banking (-16.5 points) and automobile assembling (-16.4 points).
Companies registering the biggest increases in their share prices in absolute terms were Bata Pakistan Ltd (Rs60.13), Sapphire Fibres Ltd (Rs49.15), Mehmood Textile Mills Ltd (Rs35.02), Bhanero Textile Mills Ltd (Rs30) and Mari Petroleum Company Ltd (Rs24.49).
Companies that recorded the biggest declines in their share prices in absolute terms were Al-Abbas Sugar Mills Ltd (Rs34), Colgate-Palmolive Pakistan Ltd (Rs25.04), Exide Pakistan Ltd (Rs20.03), Indus Motor Company Ltd (Rs19.79) and Gatron Industries Ltd (Rs9.98).
Foreign investors were net buyers as they purchased shares worth $0.44m.
Published in Dawn, June 24th, 2023
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