Profit-booking in bank sector drags KSE-100 down

• A lack of positive triggers that could give direction to market dented investor interest.
• Index-heavy bank sector faced massive selling, which fuelled the downtrend.
• KSE-100 index closes at 41,013.86 points with a decrease of 1.02%.

KARACHI: The bulls took a break at the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) on Thursday as profit-booking pulled the benchmark KSE-100 index lower by 421 points.

Index-heavy bank sector faced massive selling, which fuelled the downtrend. 

A lack of positive triggers that could give direction to the market dented investor interest, leading to the divestment of stockholdings, which erased early gains.

In the morning, trading began on a negative note and the market fell below the 40,000-point mark. 

The downtrend proved consistent and profit-booking by market participants erased the gains. The market’s decline deepened towards the end of the session.

The benchmark KSE-100 index closed at 41,013.86 points with a decrease of 421.27 points or 1.02%.

Arif Habib Limited in its post-market commentary noted that the benchmark KSE-100 index witnessed a bloodbath session today due to current political clamour and the negative news pertaining to private bank. 

"As investors opted to remain on the sideline from the market because of hazy economic forecast, the market opened in the red and remained under pressure for the rest of the day making an intraday low of -524.31 points," the brokerage house stated.

It further stated that the volumes declined significantly across the main board on the contrary decent volumes were observed in the third-tier stocks.

Sectors contributing to the performance included banks (-246.8 points), technology (-53 points), exploration and production (-26.8 points), chemicals (-21.7points), and fertilisers (-17.8 points).

Shares of 324 companies were traded during the session. At the close of trading, 103 scrips closed in the green, 194 in the red, and 27 remained unchanged.

Overall trading volumes declined to 127.44 million shares compared with Wednesday's tally of 220.56 million. The value of shares traded during the day was Rs5.51 billion.

K-Electric was the volume leader with 11.16 million shares traded, losing Rs0.05 to close at Rs3. It was followed by TPL Properties with 9.97 million shares traded, losing Rs0.61 to close at Rs20.86 and TRG Pakistan with 7.81 million shares losing Rs2.38 to close at Rs122.92.