"Stocks closed lower amid institutional profit taking in overbought scrips and investors booked profit due to uncertainty in global stocks and commodities," said Ahsan Mehanti an analyst at Arif Habib. He said that limited foreign interest, concerns for falling foreign investment and security situation in the country played a catalyst role in bearish sentiments despite improved valuations, record textile export data for November 2012 and ECC approvals on allocation of gas to fertiliser sector.
Trading activity was dull compared to previous session. Overall 182.017 million shares were traded at ready counter compared to 185.426 million a day earlier. Market capitalisation decreased by Rs 5.6 billion to Rs 4.232 trillion from Rs 4.238 trillion. Trading activity was occurred in 347 scrips, out of which 172 increased, 152 declined and share value of 23 companies was remained stable. Among top 10 active scrips, TRG Pakistan was volume leader with 36.14 million share turnover and it gained Re 0.74 to close at Rs 5.77. Dewan Cement increased by Re 0.28 to Rs 5.2 with 17.36 million shares trading. Share price of Byco Petroleum lost Re 0.25 to close at Rs 12.09 with 12.89 million shares.
With 6.7 million share trading, NIB Bank Limited gained Re 0.08 to close at Rs 2.55. Jah Sidd Co increased by Re 0.14 to Rs 16.65 and its 5.84 million shares were traded, while the share price of Fauji Cement was down by Re 0.04 to Rs 6.4 on 5.81 million share turnover.
KSEC and Pak Elektron Ltd increased by Re 0.03 and Re 0.56 to close at Rs 6.3 and Rs 9.73 with share trading of 5.3 million and 4.9 million share trading respectively. Descon Oxychem closed at Rs 6.92, up by Re 0.39 on 3.4 million turnover and Descon Chemical also gained Re 0.23 to close at Rs 3.22 and its 3.2 million shares were traded.
Rafhan Maiz Products was highest gainer and increased by Rs 150 to close at Rs 4,000, followed by Colgate Palmolive, whose share price up by Rs 69.47 to Rs 1,469.45. Pakistan Int Cont SD was the worst loser and decreased by Rs 12.24 to Rs 255.24, followed by Exide (Pak), which lost Rs 9.99 to close at Rs 290.01 per share.
Samar Iqbal an equity dealer at JS said that some profit taking was witnessed at local bourse on Friday as index closed 42 points down touching all time high index level of 16,968. Activity however remained confined towards mid cap stocks as 36 percent of total volume was witnessed only in TRG, DCL and Byco Petroleum, she added. "Witnessing yet another historic high no major excitement prevailed on the local equity market on the last trading session of the week with low priced stocks leading the turnover the frontline stocks," said Hasnain Asghar Ali, COO, ESCAP. On back to back low volumetric sessions forced the benchmark to undergo technical adjustment while some stocks maintained previous close on presence of accumulators on dips, due to low multiples and high dividend yields, he added.