Bearish run continues on profit-taking

Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) on Thursday faced an extended selling spree in a topsy-turvy session on account of institutional profit-taking amid a global crude price slump and decrease in Pakistan’s exports, which pushed the KSE-100 index below the 71,000-point mark. Earlier, trading began at the intra-day high of 71,292.83 points, but soon the index took a deep dive. Though it recovered quickly afterwards, it could not sustain the gains and started falling again before midday. The index recorded its intra-day low at 70,562.12 points in the middle of the session as investors resorted to profit-taking. Despite the International Monetary Fund (IMF)’s approval of the final loan tranche of $1.1 billion, investor sentiment did not improve, which kept the market in the red. The bearish trend was further fuelled by a 9% month-on-month (MoM) fall in exports to $2.35 billion while imports went down by 3% MoM to $4.72 billion.