KARACHI: Pakistan Stock Exchange remained under pressure during the week ended on July 30, due to investors concerns over increasing Corona virus cases and lock down in different parts of the country.
BRIndex100 lost 152.33 points on week-on-week basis to close at 5,053.51 points. Average daily trading volumes stood at 339.399 million shares.
BRIndex30 declined by 1515.85 points to close at 25,255.22 points with average daily turnover of 231.897 million shares.
KSE-100 index plunged by 737.78 points on week-on-week basis and closed at 47,055.29 points. Trading activities slightly improved as average daily volumes on ready counter increased by 27.5 percent to 404.84 million shares as compared to previous week's average of 317.57 million shares. Average daily traded value increased by 14.4 percent to Rs 13.15 billion.
Total market capitalization declined by Rs 121 billion to Rs 8.242 trillion.
An analyst at AKD Securities said following the Eid holidays, the market started the week with crumbly emotion as the anxiety grew over the drastic surge in Covid delta variant which continued to derail the investor confidence. Correspondingly, the investors preferred to remain as spectators in light of uncertainty over the announcement of monitory policy where they feared a hike of 25-50bps due to the PKR devaluation of 2.7 percent on month-on-month basis.
Although the policy rate remained unchanged, the market still lacked the bullish sentiment. The first half of trading session on Friday saw bulls come into force however panic selling took over the trading floor following the announcement of strict lockdown to curb the spread of delta variant which had taken over the financial capital by storm.
Top performers of the market included KTML (up 12.5 percent), JDWS (up 11.6 percent), SFL (up 5.6 percent), EFERT (up 5.1 percent) and ICI (up 4.8 percent). The laggards included STJT (down 14.8 percent), HASCOL (down 14.6 percent), ANL (down 11.3 percent), AGP (down 10.0 percent) and UNITY (down 9.9 percent).
Top volume leaders included WTL (294.23 million shares), BYCO (160.39 million shares), TELE (103.89 million shares), TPL (71.58 million shares) and HUMNL (50.58 million shares).
Flow wise, Banks/DFIs remained the major buyers with (net buy of $6.3 million) followed by Other Organizations (net buy of $2.43 million), Broker Proprietary (net buy of $1.29 million) and Mutual Funds (net buy of $1.11 million) while Individuals stood on the other side with (net sell of $4.84 million) followed by Companies (net sell of $1.58 million).
An analyst at JS Global Capital said that bears gripped Pakistan equities as the serious concerns over the ongoing fourth wave of the Coronavirus kept investors cautious as double digit positivity rates were recorded in the larger cities, particularly Karachi where strict lockdowns were announced towards the end of the week.
During the week, the Monetary Policy Committee decided to keep the Policy Rate unchanged at 7.0 percent to facilitate economic growth in line with the general expectations of the market. Moreover, the IMF revised upwards Pakistan's growth forecast to 3.9 percent for FY21. With regards to the EFF, discussions are still underway between the government and the Fund on the sixth review of the program. The fertilizer sector outperformed the benchmark index over better-than-expected margins and strong overall expectations going forward. Foreign exchange reserves held by the SBP declined by $221 million to $17.8 billion in the week ended July 23.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2021
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