Karachi, March 03, 2020: Market continued the ascent realizing a gain of +570 points during the session, but felt the need to consolidate and book profits, which saw index sliding, back by -239 points.
The benchmark index closed -97 points to close the session. Cement sector has so far shown the strength, which resisted last week and even made a strong comeback when the despair ended.
Reports of Cement manufacturers meeting in the coming days to resolve the issues kept the interest alive among investors. On the other hand, news of FFC cutting back the price of Urea concerned investors to ditch fertilizer stocks and consider safe havens such as Cyclical and otherwise Oil & gas chain.
Cement sector again led the traded volumes with 63.2 million shares, followed by O&GMCs (26.5 million) and Technology (22.7 million). Among scrips, MLCF topped the chart with 20.9 million shares, followed by UNITY (20.5 million) and HASCOL (19.2 million).
The Index closed at 39,200 points as against 39,296 points showing a decline of 97 points (-0.2 percent DoD). Sectors contributing to the performance include Fertilizer (-101 points), Power (-42 points), Banks (-32 points), E&P (+52 points) and Technology (+23 points).
Volumes increased from 215.3 million shares to 225.2 million shares (+5 percent DoD). Average traded value, however, dipped by 3 percent to reach US$ 56.7 million as against US$ 58.7 million.
Stocks that contributed significantly to the volumes include MLCF, UNITY, HASCOL, TRG and FCCL, which formed 38 percent of total volumes.
Stocks that contributed positively include PPL (+23 points), OGDC (+18 points), TRG (+15 points), HASCOL (+15 points) and POL (+14 points). Stocks that contributed negatively include FFC (-44 points), ENGRO (-40 points), HUBC (-37 points), LUCK (-32 points), and EFERT (-17 points).
