KARACHI: The Pakis­tan Stock Exchange (PSX) saw its third negative session of the week on Friday amid range-bound trading, with the index fluctuating in both directions.

The benchmark KSE-100 index lost 440 points to close just above the 78,000 mark, recording a decline of over 2,000 points during the week.

“A range-bound session was observed today as investors preferred to remain on the sidelines before the monetary policy meeting on Monday, June 29,” the brokerage house Topline Securities said in its post-market report on Friday.

Major positive contribution to the index came from Bank AL Habib, Ba­nk Alfalah, United Bank, Hub Power Comp­any, and Pakistan Tobacco Company, as these five scrips cumulatively contributed 216 points.

Conversely, Habib Bank, Oil and Gas Development Company, Meezan Bank, Pakistan State Oil, and Systems Ltd lost value to weigh down on the index by -258 points.

Traded volume and value for the day stood at 277 million shares and Rs11.62 billion, respectively.

K-Electric was Friday’s volume leader with 15m shares, followed by Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Ltd, WorldCall Telecom, Quice Food Industries, and Agritech Ltd.

On a week-on-week basis, the KSE-100 dropped by 2.6 per cent.

“This decline can be attributed to an increase in political noise following the government’s reluctance to implement the court’s reserved seat decision in favour of the opposition and measures by the government to ban the opposition party PTI,” Topline Securities said.

The report also highlighted that profit-taking by investors after a prolonged consolidation period around the 80,000 level contributed to the market pressure during the week.

Major events during the outgoing week included a treasury bill auction, in which yields declined in the range of 30 to 56 basis points ahead of the monetary policy announcement on Monday.

Average daily traded volume and value during the week stood at 336m shares and Rs15.5bn, respectively.

Published in Dawn, July 27th, 2024