KARACHI: The Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) landed in the red on Tuesday for the second day running, as the benchmark KSE-100 Index shed 350 points.
Rising geopolitical tension between Russia and Ukraine pushed oil prices near $100 a barrel early on in the day, a development that is a negative for the commodity’s net importers like Pakistan. The currency market also felt its effects, with the rupee losing 0.27% in the inter-bank market on Tuesday.
During the morning, the KSE-100 lost nearly 1.5% (664 points) before cherry-picking in the final hour helped the index manage a finish over the 45,000 level. At close, the KSE-100 finished with a drop of 350.67 points or 0.77% to finish at 45,012.18.
Sectors dragging the benchmark index down on Tuesday included technology and communication (124.17 points), cement (54.10 points) and fertiliser (40.52 points).
Volume on the all-share index increased to 227.17 million from 137.66 million on Monday. The value of shares traded more than doubled to Rs7.63 billion from Rs3.61 billion recorded in the previous session.
WorldCall Telecom was the volume leader with 23.69 million shares, followed by Bank of Punjab with 14.41 million shares, and TeleCard Limited with 12.9 million shares.
Shares of 341 companies were traded on Tuesday, of which 75 registered an increase, 252 recorded a fall, and 14 remained unchanged.
