KARACHI - Pakistan Stock Exchange, which witnessed bullish trend during the last few days, succumbed to profit-taking on Tuesday as the benchmark index closed in the negative territory. The KSE 100-index lost 41.93 point to settle at 33,766.49 points.
The cement sector led the decline as DGKC went down by 0.53%, FCCL 1.19% and CHCC 1.81%, after the news that the Association of Builders and Developers (ABAD) has appealed to the government to take action against sky high prices or allow cement imports. OGDC, down 1.38, was also amongst the laggards as global oil prices continued to head southwards. PTC (6.38%) closed near its upper circuit on the back of news reports on the internet suggesting that the Pakistan Telecom Authority may be contemplating a floor price for telecom services provided by cellular companies, observed analyst Arhum Ghous.
Interest was seen across the board as healthy volumes were again seen as they rose by 12% to 327m shares (value increased by 17% to Rs13.6b/$130m).
Profit taking was mainly seen in cement sector stocks as DGKC, MLCF and FCCL closed down by 0.3%, 0.1% and 1.4%, respectively, dealers said.
Oil stocks remained under pressure due to plunge in international crude. POL, OGDC and PPL declined between the range of 1.5% to 1.6%.
FFBL continued to rally as per its announcement that its subsidiary FML (Fauji Meat Limited) has started its operation from 2nd April, which resulted in the stock trading at its upper limit but ended up closing up at 3.24%.
Board of Directors of DGKC along with other companies such as NPL, NML, AICL, LPL, PKGP etc submitted pre-qualification document as a consortium member to seek Punjab’s govt’s approval for development of 200-225MW RLNG, market analysts added.