PSX witnesses bloodbath

KARACHI: Pakistan Stock Exchange on Thursday witnessed a bloodbath due to current political situation in the country, experts said.

As investors opted to remain on the sidelines because of hazy economic forecast, the market opened in the red and remained under pressure for the rest of the day. The benchmark KSE-100 Index plunged by 421.27 points or 1.02 percent and closed at 41,013.86 points. The index hit 40,909.60 points intraday lowl.

Trading activity remained very thin as total daily volumes on ready counter declined to 127.449 million shares as compared to 220.560 million shares traded on Wednesday while total daily traded value on ready counter declined to Rs 5.518 billion against previous day’s Rs 8.028 billion.

BRIndex100 declined by 49.82 points or 1.2 percent to close at 4,105.92 points with total daily turnover of 114.804 million shares.

BRIndex30 decreased by 148.66 points or 0.95 percent to close at 15,478.37 points with total daily trading volumes of 72.434 million shares.

Foreign investors also remained on the selling side and withdrew $4.451 million from local equity market. Total market capitalization declined by Rs 53 to close at Rs 6.760 trillion. Out of total 324 active scrips, 194 closed in negative and 103 in positive while the value of 27 stocks remained unchanged.

K-Electric was the volume leader with 11.169 million shares however lost Rs 0.05 to close at Rs 6.00 followed by TPL Properties that closed at Rs 20.86, down Rs 0.61 with 9.977 million shares. TRG Pak declined by Rs 2.38 to close at Rs 122.92 with 7.811 million shares.

Sanofi-Aventis and Faisal Spinning were the top gainers increasing by Rs 49.00 and Rs 23.99 respectively to close at Rs 1,149.00 and Rs 423.99 while Premium Textile and Colgate Palmolive were the top losers declining by Rs 62.02 and Rs 48.99 respectively to close at Rs 764.93 and Rs 2,091.01.

An analyst at Arif Habib Limited said that the benchmark KSE-100 Index witnessed a bloodbath session due to current political clamour and the negative news pertaining to HBL. As investors opted to remain on sidelines from the market because of hazy economic forecast, the market opened in the red and remained under pressure for the rest of the day making an intraday low of -524.31 points.

The volumes declined significantly across the main board on the contrary decent volumes were observed in the 3rd tier stocks.

Sectors contributing to the performance include Banks (down 246.8 points), Technology (down 53.0 points), E&Ps (down 26.8 points), Chemicals (down 21.7 points) and Fertilizers (down 17.8 points).

BR Automobile Assembler Index decreased by 49.76 points or 0.54 percent to close at 9,106.94 points with total turnover of 943,391 shares.

BR Cement Index gained 15.06 points or 0.34 percent to close at 4,507.35 points with 15.177 million shares.

BR Commercial Banks Index plunged by 235.43 points or 2.77 percent to close at 8,276.09 points with 10.140 million shares.

BR Power Generation and Distribution Index lost 15.15 points or 0.26 percent to close at 5,809.80 points with 15.847 million shares.

BR Oil and Gas Index fell by 19.04 points or 0.52 percent to close at 3,660.10 points with 10.009 million shares. BR Tech. & Comm. Index declined by 59.5 points or 1.46 percent to close at 4,015.06 points with 18.173 million shares. Ahsan Mehanti at Arif Habib Corporation said that stocks witnessed bearish activity on investor concerns for political noise.

He said investor concerns over economic impact of flash flood losses and record surge in Pakistan dollar bond yields near to default calls after FM hinted to reduce interest rates played a catalyst role in bearish close.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2022