Pakistan Stock Exchange up by 90.02 points
May 13, 2020 07:12 PM
The Pakistan Stock Exchange sustained the previous day’s gains on Wednesday by remaining in the green zone for the entire session.
By the time the trading ended, the KSE-100 Index gained 90.02 points and closed at 33,693.04. At one point, it had reached 33,802.87 but it suffered some losses since then.
A total of 143,219,907 shares were traded during the session where the share prices of 161 companies went down and that of 151 increased. Meanwhile, there was no change in the value of 21 companies.
Earlier on Tuesday, the KSE-100 Index went up by 319.23 points and closed at 33.603.02.
On Wednesday, the automobile sector saw the share prices of different companies going down with the only exception of Millat Tractors which made a gain of Rs8.71. However, only 46,000 shares of the company were traded.
The biggest loser was Indus Motors as it lost Rs17.79 in its share price. Same was the case with other big names – like Honda Atlas and Ghandhara Nissan – as it proved to be another day of losses.
This trend shouldn’t be a surprise as 24NewsHD TV earlier in the day reported that not a single locally-manufactured car was sold during the month of April.
But it would be wrong to solely blame the coronavirus-induced lockdown for the overall miserable state of affairs. It is because of the fact that a 52 percent reduction in car sales has been witnessed during the first 10 months of the financial year 2019-20 when compared with the corresponding period in 2018-19.
Much before the coronavirus pandemic, the industry has been badly affected by the rupee depreciation and the resultant increase in cost which automatically forced the manufacturers to transfer this to the buyers. Hence, less number of vehicles are being sold since the government decided to go for devaluation.
On the other hand, cement, chemical and banking sectors had a mixed session. However, the fertilizers companies made small gains.
Meanwhile, the oil and gas companies too had amixed session but the share prices of those making gains saw a substantial jump in their values.
However, the best overall performance again came from the pharmaceutical companies with the share price of Sanofi-Aventis Pakistan going up by Rs28.15.