LSE loses 52 points


LAHORE, May 15 (APP):Lahore Stock market witnessed bearish trend on Thursday as LSE-25 index lost 52.70 points to settle at 4480.68 points as compared to 4533.38 points on Wednesday.

The total turnover also showed the downward trend as it remained 15.698 million shares as compared to the previous volume of 21.012 million shares showing a difference of 5.313 million.

Of 121 active scrips traded on Thursday, 27 moved up, 31 gone down while another 63 equities remained stable.

Pervez Ahmed Securities Limited, D.S.industries Limited, and Honda Atlas Cars (Pak) were among the major gainers of the day while MCB Bank Limited, Atlas Honda Limited and Engro Chemical Pakistan led the losers side.

NIB Bank Limited emerged as volume leader with 2.149 million shares followed by the D.G. Khan Cement Company Ltd with 1.679 million shares and Bank Alfalh Limited with 1.437 million.

LSE dives amid thin trade

LAHORE: The Lahore stock market took a massive hit on the last working day of the week, declining by 71 points to wipe out all gains it achieved on the first three days of the week amid a low trading volume.

The LSE 25-share index closed at 4,409 points after briefly going below the 4,400 level. It recovered in the last minutes of trading. There were 114 active shares, out of which only seven could manage to improve their values while 57 suffered losses. There was no change in 50 companies.

The trading volume declined by three million shares to 12 million only. Bank Alfalah was the volume leader with a turnover of 2.3 million shares. Arif Habib Securities was another company among the top 10 volume leaders that managed to record a turnover of over a million shares. Five volume leaders could not achieve even half a million shares’ mark.

Small investors have mostly shielded themselves from the losses by remaining on the sidelines while the big brokers are finding it difficult to hold on to their stocks, though they have again reached attractive levels.

Most of the mutual funds, modaraba and leasing companies were on the losers’ side. There was gloom in the investment bank and securities sector while commercial banks were in the complete grip of bears. Only smaller banks escaped losses. All the five major banks declined, led by National Bank, Habib Bank and MCB Bank falling by Rs6, Rs6.65 and Rs5.80 per share respectively. There was only one gainer among cement companies. All the companies traded in the refinery, oil and gas marketing and exploration sectors saw their share prices drop. Similarly, all the five fertiliser firms ended the day lower.