The benchmark KSE-100 index declined by 184.06 points to 44,049.05 points. Daily trading volumes further increased to 288.592 million shares as compared to 282.480 million shares traded Tuesday. Foreign investors remained net sellers of shares worth $5.1 million. The market capitalization decreased by Rs 26 billion to Rs 9.136 trillion. Out of total 384 active scrips, 193 closed in positive, 170 in negative while the value of 21 stocks remained unchanged.
Dewan Cement was the volume leader with 29.942 million shares. It gained Re 0.75 to close at Rs 26.38 followed by Engro Polymer that inched up by Re 0.48 to close at Rs 26.88 with 26.320 million shares. Pak Tobacco and Bata Pak were the top gainers with Rs 102.83 and Rs 96.00, respectively to close at Rs 2,159.55 and Rs 2,499.00. Nestle Pakistan and Rafhan Maize were the top losers with Rs 580.00 and Rs 200.00, respectively to close at Rs 11,020.00 and Rs 7,000.00.
BR Commercial Banks Index declined by 184.24 points or 1.65 percent to close at 8,840.90 points with total turnover of 15.314 million shares. BR Cement Index lost 41.55 points or 0.69 percent to close at 6,014.38 points with 39.999 million shares. BR Oil and Gas Index closed at 5,228.38 points, down 19.7 points or 0.38 percent with 10.115 million shares.
BR Tech. & Comm. Index gained 4.82 points or 0.4 percent to close at 1,206.00 points with 34.395 million shares. BR Power Generation and Distribution Index decreased by 52.44 points or 0.79 percent to close at 6,548.10 points with 4.594 million shares. An analyst at Arif Habib Limited said that 5th consecutive decline was witnessed, which was very much expected given the low expectations from ongoing result season. However, the outlook is more of a short term rebound and once the result season is off, market is likely to pick pace on next-12-months outlook. The scrip that stole the show turned out to be DCL (Dewan Cement), which saw the stock price oscillating from Lock to Cap in the final hour. The intention to acquire DCL, which was very much anticipated by the market, saw the stock moving both ways with the optimism that bid price will be much higher than current trading price and the weighted average trading price which was mentioned in the notice only to show past trend.
Sectors contributing to this performance include Commercial Banks (down 184 points), Oil & Gas E&P (down 39 points), Cement (down 32 points) and Fertilizer (up 66 points). Stocks that contributed significantly to the volumes include DCL, EPCL, WTL, DSL and ANL reflecting 38 percent of total volumes.
Scripts that contributed positively include FFC (up 40 points), PAKT (up 27 points), BAHL (up 11 points), NML (up 11 points) and EFERT (up 11 points). Stocks that contributed negatively include UBL (down 85 points), MCB (down 55 points), LUCK (down 45 points), OGDC (down 36 points) and NESTLE (down 14 points).