KARACHI: Share prices tumbled on Tuesday as investors sold their holdings to book profits.

Arif Habib Ltd said the index of representative shares opened above the preceding close but dropped to the negative territory and hit the intraday low of 669.92 points.

The sell-off was mainly in the exploration and production stocks, which had witnessed “tremendous growth” during the last few days.

The delay in getting final approvals from the board of the International Monetary Fund for the release of a $1.2 billion tranche under the loan programme was the trigger for profit-booking, accor­ding to the brokerage.

Healthy trade volumes were observed across the board, with the exploration and production sector leading the way.

As a result, the KSE-100 index settled at 41,150.16 points, down 566.79 points or 1.36 per cent from the preceding session.

The overall trading volume decreased 2.5pc to 187.5 million shares. The traded value went up 3.4pc to $29.4m on a day-on-day basis.

Stocks contributing significantly to the traded volume included Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Ltd (16m shares), WorldCall Telecom Ltd (14.9m shares), Oil and Gas Development Company Ltd (12.7m shares), Sui Southern Gas Company Ltd (12.5m shares) and Pakistan Petroleum Ltd (9.6m shares).

Sectors contributing the most to the index performance were technology and communication (-147.3 points), exploration and production (-131.9 points), commercial banking (-105.8 points), cement (-57.5 points) and oil marketing (-6.8 points).

Companies registering the biggest increases in their share prices in absolute terms were Rafhan Maize Products Company Ltd (Rs382.50), Good Luck Industries Ltd (Rs50), Philip Morris Pakistan Ltd (Rs39.52), Pakistan Tobacco Company Ltd (Rs28.64) and JDW Sugar Mills Ltd (Rs24.99).

Companies that record­ed the biggest declines in their share prices in absolute terms were Unilever Pakis­tan Foods Ltd (Rs1,499.50), Nestle Pakistan Ltd (Rs51), Reliance Cotton Spinning Mills Ltd (Rs50.32), Colgate-Palmolive Pakistan Ltd (Rs30.86) and Abbott Laboratories Pakistan Ltd (Rs19.97).

Foreign investors were net sellers as they offloaded shares worth $0.08m.

Published in Dawn, February 15th, 2023