Bearish sentiment spread across the Pakistan Stock Exchange on Thursday, as the benchmark KSE-100 index recorded a significant decline amid a significant contraction in market trading.
The KSE-100 index fell 293.50 points or 0.18 percent to close the session at 165,517.51. The index experienced considerable volatility throughout the day, reaching a high of 166,962.17 before touching a low of 161,993.00.
Similarly, the KSE-30 index, which tracks the performance of the top 30 companies, also concluded in the red. It fell by 151.34 points, a 0.30 per cent decrease, to settle at 50,169.05 from its previous close of 50,320.40.
Investor participation saw a marked reduction, with the regular market turnover plummeting to 888.57 million shares from the previous day”s 1.25 billion shares.
Despite the sharp fall in trading volume, the traded value showed a more modest dip, settling at PKR 54.28 billion compared to the prior session”s PKR 54.40 billion. The overall market capitalisation eroded, finishing the day at PKR 18.26 trillion, down from PKR 18.32 trillion.
In the derivatives market, Deliverable Futures Contracts (DFC) recorded a turnover of 165.51 million, a decrease from the previous 196.88 million. However, the traded value in this segment notably increased to PKR 11.94 billion from PKR 9.17 billion.