PSX remains under pressure

Pakistan Stock Market remained under pressure during the outgoing week ended August 18, 2017 as the investors opted to offload their holding on their concerns over prevailing political situation in the country. BRIndex100 declined by 236.79 points on week-on-week basis and closed at the level of 4,692.69 points from last week''s closing of 4,929.48 points.
BRIndex30 closed at 23,366.91, down 1,265.27 points from last week''s closing level of 24,632.18 points. Pakistan''s benchmark KSE-100 index plunged by 2210.11 points or 4.9 percent on week-on-week basis and closed at 43,078.38 points. Trading activities on the ready counter remained low as average daily volumes decreased by 3.4 percent to 183.50 million shares. Average daily trading value however increased by 2.6 percent to Rs 9.89 billion.
The foreign investors were net sellers of shares worth $2.04 million against a net flow of $31.16 million in the previous week. Total market capitalization declined by Rs 430 billion to Rs 8.991 trillion. An analyst at AKD Securities said with rising political uncertainty, the benchmark KSE-100 index fell 4.8 percent, ending the 4-day trading session at 43,078 points. Performance wise, scrips losing the most during the week were ASTL (down 15.71 percent), PSMC (down 15.43 percent), EFOODS (down 13.02 percent), CHCC (down 10.90 percent) and GWLC (down 10.06 percent), while in AKD universe only NBP managed to end the week in green territory.
An analyst at JS Global Capital said that uncertain political outlook and concerns over economy/currency continued to take its toll on the market as the benchmark KSE-100 index closed 5 percent lower, and in the process made a new 2017 intraday low on Friday. At the end of the week, KSE-100 index has cumulatively lost 2,932 points since the start of the month. This week, mutual funds and foreign investors remained the largest net sellers of $24 million and $2 million, respectively. Mutual Funds were keen to rebalance their portfolios to adjust for seemingly tumultuous political and economic climate. On the other side, however, banks and individuals looked to take advantage of weak asset prices in hopes of capturing benefits of relentless selling. Almost all listed sectors remained under pressure with key sectors such as Cements (down 6.9 percent), OMCs (down 4.5 percent), Automobiles (down 8.1 percent) and Fertilizers (down 4.9 percent) witnessing the major chunk of selling.