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Thursday March 28, 2024

Stocks end up in sharp reversal after 1,690 points dip

By Our Correspondent
March 14, 2020

Stocks on Friday turned positive in a highly volatile trade, bounced back from a four percent dip that forced a trading halt earlier in the day, rising, dealers said.

The market opened under pressure and made an intraday low of -1,690 points during the initial hours of trade. Further decline in oil prices overnight also weighed down on the investor`s sentiment which was evident from panic selling during the first half. The market saw its third halt in the outgoing week as the KSE 30 index fell by more than 4 percent.

“However as trading activity resumed after the halt recovery was observed as value investors came in to accumulate positions at attractive levels,” brokerage Topline Securities said in a post market note. “Intraday recovery in oil prices and positive open by European markets also provided confidence to investors.”

Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) benchmark KSE-100 shares index gained 0.29 percent or 104.19 points to close at 36,060.88 points level. KSE-30 shares index followed suit with a high of 0.15 percent or 24.27 points to end at 16,016.64 points level.

Of 354 active scrips, 158 up, 182 retreated, and 14 remained unchanged. The ready market volumes stood at 290.470 million shares, as compared with the turnover of 230.698 million shares in the previous session.

Salman Ahmad, head of institutional sales at Aba Ali Habib said the market made a grand recovery “as it registered a decline of more than 1,600 points, which resulted in the closure of the market for the third consecutive time during the week”.

“The market, however, recovered sharply on back of global stock market recovery where most of them closed green with rising trend in crude oil price it also supported the market sentiment where recovery in the heavy weightage sector oil and gas exploration also saw some fresh buying, converting all negatives into pluses,” Ahmad said.

Samiullah Tariq, director research at Arif Habib said a recovery in global markets helped improved the sentiment at the local bourse.

“It appears that the market locally and globally have over reacted, we understood that corona virus has dampened the economy but sell-off globally has been unaccounted for and announcements of central banks all over the world to provide much need liquidity to financial markets also bodes well for the market men,” Tariq added.

Fahad Rauf deputy head at Ismail Iqbal Securities said equities witnessed third trading halt in a single week as the benchmark index fell to 34,266 level few minutes after opening.

E&Ps, OMCs and fertilizers led the index most, cumulatively adding 164 points The top gainers were Unilever Foods, up Rs90.00 to close at Rs7300.00/share, and Sapphire Textile Rs49.99 to finish at Rs874.99/share.

Major losers were, Pakistan Tobacco down Rs134.68 to close at Rs1789.32/share, and Bata Pakistan down Rs57.38 to close at Rs1630.01/share. Bank of Punjab recorded the highest volumes with a turnover of 31.115 million shares. Its scrip lost Re0.10 end at Rs10.10/share. The lowest volumes were witnessed in Cherat Cement recording a turnover of 7.223 million shares, whereas the scrip lost Re0.99 to end at Rs78.98/share.