Market opened on a positive note today +50pts, and following the momentum since the beginning of the week the index added a total of 282pts during the session. Profit booking brought the index down by 448pts and closed the session -337pts. Rather than any negative development on economic or political front, today’s profit booking was largely an outcome of risk taking at the beginning of this week that paid well yesterday and today. Tomorrow is the decision day for FATF, which will be announced post market in the evening and will have its impact next week Monday. Among scrips, UNITY continued topping the index with 61.3M shares, followed by PIBTL (56.3M) and MLCF (44.5M).

· The Index closed at 41,199pts as against 41,536pts showing a decline of 337pts (-0.8% DoD). Sectors contributing to the performance include E&P (-110pts), Power (-85pts), O&GMCs (-38pts), Pharma (-22pts) and Technology (-19pts).

· Volumes declined from 661.3mn shares to 500.1mn shares (-25% DoD). Average traded value also declined by 21% to reach US$ 106.9mn as against US$ 135.1mn.

· Stocks that contributed significantly to the volumes include UNITY, PIBTL, MLCF, HASCOL and TRG, which formed 46% of total volumes.

· Stocks that contributed positively to the index include BAHL (+74pts), HMB (+17pts), MLCF (+15pts), MTL (+10pts) and FFC (+10pts). Stocks that contributed negatively include HUBC (-71pts), OGDC (-40pts), PPL (-33pts), POL (-20pts) and MEBL (-20pts).