The KSE-100 index declined by 208.67 points or 0.52 percent to close at 40,070.71 points. Trading activity remained low as daily volumes on the ready counter decreased to 102.625 million shares as compared to 132.089 million shares traded Wednesday.
Foreign investors however remained net buyers of shares worth $0.9 million. The market capitalization declined by Rs 23 billion to Rs 7.954 trillion. Out of total 329 active scrips, 197 closed in negative, 103 in positive while the value of 29 stocks remained unchanged.
Unity Foods was the volume leader with 10.029 million shares. However, it lost Rs 1.05 to close at Rs 20.13 followed by K-Electric that closed at Rs 6.27, down Re 0.07 with 6.064 million shares. Island Textile and Abbott Lab were the top gainers with Rs 22.00 and Rs 12.80, respectively to close at Rs 1,637.00 and Rs 678.79. Colgate Palmolive and Pak Suzuki were the top losers with Rs 54.17 and Rs 13.82, respectively to close at Rs 1,995.83 and Rs 262.77.
BR Commercial Banks Index declined by 59.33 points or 0.68 percent to close at 8,620.62 points with total turnover of 23.620 million shares. BR Cement Index gained 27.5 points or 0.63 percent to close at 4,385.27 points with 7.572 million shares.
BR Oil and Gas Index inched up by 2.18 points or 0.04 percent to close at 4,964.99 points with 5.434 million shares. BR Tech. & Comm. Index lost 3.16 points or 0.31 percent to close at 1,010.58 points with 4.566 million shares. BR Power Generation and Distribution Index decreased by 146.11 points or 2.33 percent to close at 6,114.41 points with 14.508 million shares.
An analyst at Arif Habib Limited said that the market plunged after an initial uptick of 137 points, after which the index dropped by 400 points. Reason for decline was mainly the release of financial reports of HBL and UBL and the concern over provisions caused investors to sell both scrips. Resultantly, UBL ranked third on volumes chart with 5 million shares and as against Wednesday''s upper circuit, UBL hit lower circuit today. HBL also faced similar pressures and realized volume of 2.5 million. HBL''s price did pick up after a drop towards lower circuit and closed near 135.
Sectors contributing to the performance include Power (down 104 points), Banks (down 70 points), Fertilizer (down 21 points), Cement (up 19 points) and Autos (up 14 points).
Stocks that contributed positively include BAHL (up 45 points), MCB (up 36 points), LUCK (up 15 points), THALL (up 14 points) and BAFL (up 8 points). Stocks that contributed negatively include UBL (down 81 points), HUBC (down 73 points), HBL (down 67 points), KAPCO (down 24 points) and FABL (down 11 points).