KARACHI: The Pakistan stock market on Friday opened on a bearish note witnessing a selling trend as the investors’ remained on the sidelines amid ambiguity regarding the International Monetary Fund (IMF) programme.
“During trading hours, selling was witnessed in the market across the board as investors are still looking towards concrete news flow regarding financial support from the recently visited countries and IMF programme,” an analyst at Pearl Securities said.
The Pakistan Stock Exchange KSE-100 shares Index shed 0.90 per cent, or 408.60 points, to close at 44,840.81 points. The KSE-30 shares Index shed 0.96 per cent, or 165.98 points, to close at 17148.53 points.
The ready market volumes stood at 189.44 million shares compared with the turnover of 325.46 million shares in the last trading session.
An analyst at Arif Habib Limited said that the market opened in a red zone after week-long holidays, where the investors remained at sidelines due to rupee parity against the dollar.
The rumors of a hike in the policy rate in the upcoming monetary policy kept the investors’ confidence under pressure, he added.
The companies which reflected the highest gains included Siemens Pak up Rs34.99 to close at Rs624.99/share, and Millat Tractors up Rs30.78 to close at Rs955.71/share.
The companies that reflected the most losses included Colgate Palm down Rs77.40 to close at Rs2,055.10/share, and Nestle Pakistan down Rs75 to close at Rs5,800/share.
The highest volumes were witnessed in Summit Bank with a turnover of 25.74 million shares. The scrip gained 23 paisas to close at Rs2.72/share, followed by Unity Foods Ltd with a turnover of 18.23 million shares. It gained 69 to close at Rs24.31/share. Cnergyico PK remained the third with a turnover of 9.12 million shares. It shed 24 paisas to finish at Rs6.11/share.