KARACHI: Pakistan Stock Exchange remained under pressure during the outgoing week ended on August 25, 2023 as the investors remained cautious and avoided to take fresh positions on their concerns over prevailing political and economic situation in the country. The benchmark KSE-100 index declined by 547.28 points on week-on-week basis and closed below 48,000 psychological-level at 47,671.22 points.
Trading activities also remained thin as average daily volumes on ready counter decreased by 11.3 percent to 205.88 million shares during this week as compared to previous week’s average of 232.00 million shares while average daily traded value on ready counter declined by 10.8 percent to Rs 8.28 billion during this week against previous week’s Rs 9.29 billion.
BRIndex100 lost 19.27 points during this week to close at 4,816.50 points with average daily turnover of 32.290 million shares.
BRIndex30 decreased by 146.70 points on week-on-week basis to close below 17,000 level at 16,935.94 points with average daily trading volumes of 21.840 million shares.
Total market capitalization declined by Rs 97 billion to Rs 7.091 trillion.
An analyst at AKD Securities said that the week remained lacklustre, with the KSE-100 index losing 547 points, closing at 47,671 points. The anticipation of heightened inflation had a negative impact on the market, fearing an ad-hoc policy rate hike. However, the recent T-bill auction negated that sentiment, with yields largely maintaining their flat trend compared to the previous auction. Withal, the focus would be on next month’s CPI data and the upcoming MPC meeting scheduled for September 14th.
Sector-wise, Synthetic & Rayon, Textile Weaving, and REIT were amongst the top performers, up 3.0 percent/1.6 percent/1.3 percent respectively. On the other hand, Cable & Electrical Goods, Pharmaceuticals and Inv. banks/ Inv. cos./ Securities cos. were amongst the worst performers with a decline of 7.3 percent/5.3 percent/4.8 percent.
Flow-wise, major net selling was recorded by Individuals with a net sell of $8.2million. On the other hand, Insurance absorbed the selling with a net buy of $19.0million.
Company-wise, top performers during the week were SCBPL (up 19.6 percent), HMB (up 13.4 percent), IBFL (up 5.7 percent), BAFL (up 4.6 percent) and MARI (up 2.5 percent), while top laggards were AGP (down 11.1 percent), PSX (down 11.1 percent), GADT (down 10.2 percent), PAEL (down 8.8 percent) and FABL (down 8.6 percent).
An analyst at JS Global Capital said that the week commenced with a pessimistic tone, and this unfavourable momentum continued as investors aimed to lock in profits due to uncertain developments on both the political and economic fronts.
During the week, Rupee continued to depreciate with PKR/US$ interbank rate losing 1.7 percent. Growing gap between open market and interbank rates, now close to 5.4 percent, highlights the significance of fluctuations in these rates, following IMF’s recommendation of maintaining a max difference of 1.25 percent.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2023
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