Karachi, April 22, 2020: Tumbling international crude prices, especially that of Brent (traded below US$ 16/bbl briefly), caused the damage to investor sentiment Wednesday. Pre-open session saw oil & gas (E&P and OMC) stocks with heavy volumes on offer.
Market opened on a negative note and saw a loss of 529 points during the session. For the most part, the benchmark index traded in the red zone, with sporadic recoveries due to Banking sector stocks.
Cement sector continued rallying on the back of expectation of an increase in cement price / bag in the coming days in the Northern region, which would improve the bottomlines of listed Cement companies, in addition to the impact of significantly lower coal prices (hovering around US$ 50/ton). Financial results of HBL, MCB, ABL brought back some activity, wherein HBL saw selling activity (despite announcement of Dividend), whereas MCB realized some price gains.
Cement sector topped the charts with 95.9 million shares, followed by Technology (22.1 million) and O&GMCs (21.4 million). Among scrips, MLCF saw volumes of 47.7 million, followed by HASCOL (17.4 million) and DGKC (13.8 million).
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The Index closed at 32,464 points as against 32,423 points showing an increase of 41 points (+0.1 percent DoD). Sectors contributing to the performance include Cement (+74 points), Banks (+44 points), E&P (-54 points), Inv Banks (-33 points) and Power (-23 points).
Volumes declined from 338.7 million shares to 239.8 million shares (-29 percent DoD). Average traded value also declined by 32 percent to reach US$ 64.2 million as against US$ 93.8 million the other day.
Stocks that contributed significantly to the volumes include MLCF, HASCOL, DGKC, FCCL and HUMNL, which formed 41 percent of total volumes.
Stocks that contributed positively to the index include MCB (+40 points), LUCK (+27 points), BAHL (+16 points), FFC (+14 points) and KAPCO (+13 points). Stocks that contributed negatively include HBL (-44 points), DAWH (-36 points), HUBC (-34 points), PPL (-29 points), and ENGRO (-22 points).
