The KSE-100 index declined by 267.20 points or 0.66 percent to close at 40,219.47 points. Daily trading volumes on the ready counter stood at 98.841 million shares as compared to 93.001 million shares traded Friday. Foreign investors however remained net buyers of shares worth $1.9 million. The market capitalization declined by Rs 40 billion to Rs 8.002 trillion. Out of total 328 active scrips, 231 closed in negative, only 75 in positive while the value of 22 stocks remained unchanged.
K-Electric was the volume leader with 6.343 million shares. However, it lost Re 0.10 to close at Rs 6.43 followed by Pak Elektron that that declined by Re 0.63 to close at Rs 26.03 with 5.439 million shares. Nestle Pakistan and Wyeth Pak were the top gainers with Rs 100.00 and Rs 36.54, respectively to close at Rs 8,900.00 and Rs 1,101.56. Colgate Palmolive and Service Ind. Limited were the top losers with Rs 40.00 and Rs 20.00, respectively to close at Rs 2,000.00 and Rs 780.00.
BR Commercial Banks Index decreased by 65.33 points or 0.75 percent to close at 8,629.07 points with a turnover of 11.275 million shares. BR Cement Index declined by 93.71 points or 2.11 percent to close at 4,338.60 points with 13.718 million shares.
BR Oil and Gas Index lost 6.5 points or 0.13 percent to close at 4,935.11 points with 5.811 million shares. BR Tech. & Comm. Index closed at 1,016.19 points, down 9.16 points or 0.89 percent with 5.173 million shares. BR Power Generation and Distribution Index plunged by 53.83 points or 0.84 percent to close at 6,322.24 points with 11.082 million shares.
Danish Ladhani at JS Global Capital said that the KSE-100 closed Monday 267 points (0.7 percent) lower at 40,219 levels after making a high and a low of up 168 and down 487 points, respectively.
Cement sector remained the major laggards due to the geo-political tension between Pakistan and India where the latter has withdrawn the Most Favored Nation (MFN) status from Pakistan and slammed 200 percent customs duty on all imports from Pakistan. Resultantly, DGKC (down 4.3 percent) and MLCF (down 4.7 percent) closed near the lower circuit whereas LUCK (down 1.7 percent) also closed in the red. HBL (down 0.3 percent), ENGRO (down 0.1 percent), HUBC (down 0.6 percent), MCB (down 1.0 percent), FFC (down 0.4 percent), UBL (down 1.3 percent), LUCK (down 1.7 percent), BAHL (down 0.2 percent) and EFERT (down 0.4 percent) cumulatively contributed negative 93 points to the close.
In the Fertilizer sector ENGRO (down 0.1 percent) and FFC (down 0.4 percent) closed negative. PSO (up 1.5 percent) announced its 1HFY19 EPS of Rs 10.86 with no cash payout while GHNI (down 5.0 percent) reported 1HFY19 EPS of Rs 8.99.