Stocks fall 1.29pc over lack of news on Chinese financial support

The benchmark KSE-100 shares index lost more than 500 points on Tuesday, as investors did not receive any news on China’s immediate financial support for Pakistan, dealers said.

Shumaila Badar, head of research at Ismail Iqbal Securities said the market slipped due to continuation of Monday’s bearish sentiment and fears related to the upcoming Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) meeting.

Cement sector under-performed due to fears that ECC may make a decision detrimental to manufacturers in its upcoming meeting. Textiles were under pressure too because the government's decision to provide gas to the sector at $6.5/mmbtu has not yet been implemented.

Oil and gas E&P stocks declined as well, but not as much as those in other sectors, because ECC would likely discuss an incentive package for E&P.

“We expect the market to decline even further in the coming sessions,” she added.

Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) KSE-100 index lost 1.29 percent or 535.44 points to close at 40,958.53 points level. KSE-30 shares index followed suit with a loss of 1.37 percent or 274.79 points to end at 19,730.36 points level.

As many as 353 scrips were active in today’s session, of those 85 moved up, 260 retreated, and eight remained unchanged. The ready market volumes stood at 230.360 billion shares, as compared with the turnover of 214.082 billion shares in the previous session.

An analyst from Topline Securities said negative sentiments continued to dominate the market, as investors did not receive any news on China’s immediate financial support.

During the session, FIA director revealed that the data of a majority of Pakistani banks had been hacked. This coupled with last week’s news that $6 million had been stolen through cyber-attacks, led commercial banks to chip away 166 points, the highest amongst all sectors.

The auto sector received heavy sell off too, especially after reports on social media that Competition Commission of Pakistan has imposed penalty on Honda Cars and Pak Suzuki in millions of rupees.

The authority has denied any such act, however, the development on social media was enough to trim the share values of Pak Suzuki which lost Rs12. Honda Cars fell by Rs16 but it recovered swiftly and closed with small gains of Rs2/share.

An analyst said that financial shares witnessed selling on reports that nearly 20,000 bank consumers have been affected by the hackers, and they have used their credit and debit cards offshore.

The highest gainers were Nestle Pakistan, up Rs175.00 to close at Rs9,600.00/share, and Hinopak Motor, up Rs36.11 to finish at Rs766.11/share.

Companies that booked highest losses were Colgate Palmolive, down Rs99.99 to close at Rs2,400.01/share, and Wyeth Pakistan Limited, down Rs62.14 to close at Rs1,200.00/share.

Pakistan Elektron recorded the highest volumes with a turnover of 24.636 million shares.

The scrip gained Rs0.99 to close at Rs31.78/share. The lowest volumes were witnessed in Lotte Chemical, recording a turnover of 14.526 million shares, and losing Rs0.37 to end at Rs17.89/share.