Karachi, January 20, 2020: First day of the change in circuit breaker met with an overall negative performance on the bourse. After an initial surge of 135 points, market largely remained under selling pressure throughout the session and went down by 535 points during the session.
MoC showed recovery of around 100pts from day’s low and closed the session at -420 points. Triggers causing investors to stay cautious included an early called FATF meeting, pending increase in gas prices by ECC and political uncertainty that marred the sentiment last week. Besides, the ECC also decided to reduce GIDC charge with the aim to reduce Urea price/bag.
Resultantly, EFERT hit lower circuit breaker, whereas FFC and FFBL showed positive price performance. Banking sector topped the chart with 27.2 million shares, followed by Technology (25.6 million) and Fertilizer (25.3 million). Among scrips, EFERT ranked first with 15.3 million shares, followed by TRG (11.9 million) and BOP (11.7 million).
The Index closed at 42,747 points as against 43,168 points showing a decline of 420 points (-1 percent DoD). Sectors contributing to the performance include Banks (-129 points), Fertilizer (-78 points), Cement (-51 points), INv Banks (-37 points) and O&GMCs (-25 points).
Volumes declined further from 211.4 million shares to 173.9 million shares (-18 percent DoD). Average traded value, on the contrary, increased by 12 percent to reach US$ 45.6 million as against US$ 40.7 million.
Stocks that contributed significantly to the volumes include EFERT, TRG, BOP, WTL and SMBL, which formed 33 percent of total volumes.
Stocks that contributed positively include FFC (+56 points), MARI (+44 points), COLG (+11 points), BAFL (+8 points) and FFBL (+8 points). Stocks that contributed negatively include ENGRO (-85 points), EFERT (-55 points), UBL (-38 points), HBL (-37 points), and DAWH (-33 points).
