KARACHI, Oct. 30, 2009 (Xinhua News Agency) -- Equities at Pakistan's Karachi Stock Exchange (KSE) finished the week on a red note with four consecutive bearish sessions as investors opted for profit booking here Friday.
The benchmark KSE 100-Index inched down 17.39 points to close at 9,151.61 levels, the KSE 30-Index lost 29.64 points to finish the day at 9,653.71 points, whereas the KSE All Share Index marginally went down by 7.11 points to end at 6,510.06 levels.
The market volumes also corresponded with the performance of the main index and went on a shedding spree to end at 179.132 million shares, 47.068 million shares lower as compared to Thursday's volumes figure of 226.200 million shares.
The main board also saw a reduction in number of active scrips as a total of 378 scrips exchanged hands during the course of the day, out of which, value of 208 equities advanced in the green zone, 148 plunged down into the red territory, whereas prices of another 22 stocks remained unchanged.
After a confused start, where the market witnessed two-way movement in the earlier minutes, bulls finally took the first blood as the main index jumped into the green zone where during the first hour of the trading session, the main index hit the highest level of the day of 9,256.94, where it consolidated its position for some time.
But after the Friday prayer's break, investors changed their stance and decided to book profits at higher levels that deprived the key index of all of its gains and it entered the red zone where at one point it touched the lowest level of the day of 9,142. 96 points.
Investors mostly remained active in tech and communication, banking, chemical and cement sectors right throughout the day.
Analysts told Xinhua that as it was the final trading session of the week, there were chances that investors might opt for profit-booking and after a thorough bullish day indices finally turned red towards the end of the day.
They further elaborated that as the government of Pakistan is fighting extremism and terrorism in the South Waziristan tribal agency, the fallout of the military offensive has caused havoc to the market sentiments.
While talking about the future course of action, they were of the view that the market is fundamentally strong which still makes it a hot cake for the offshore investors. If offshorers continued to pour in their money into the KSE, it would certainly move towards the psychological figure of 10,000 points.
TRG Pakistan Limited was the top traded scrip of the day with a turnover of 25.003 million shares, followed by Pakistan PTA Limited and Adamjee Insurance Limited with 13.901 million and 10. 053 million shares respectively.
UniLever Pakistan came out as the major price gainer of the day with 75.00 rupees (one U.S. dollar equals 83 rupees) surge in its share price to end at 2,375.00 rupees.
On the contrary, DREL emerged as the top decliner of the day with 29.00 rupees plunge in its share price to rest at 565.00 rupees.
