Selling pressure witnessed

Pakistan Stock Exchange remained under selling pressure during the outgoing week ended October 06, 2017 due to investors concern over prevailing political situation in the country. BRIndex100 lost 128.66 points on week-on-week basis to close at 4,485.90 points. Average daily volumes stood at 121.830 million shares.
BRIndex30 decreased by 826.53 points to close at 22,630.50 points with average daily volumes of 75.901 million shares. Pakistan''s benchmark KSE-100 index declined by 1,096.68 points or 206 percent on week-on-week basis and closed at 41,312.59 points. Average daily trading volumes on ready counter decreased by 4.3 percent to 140.04 million shares as compared to previous week''s average of 146.36 million shares. Average daily trading value however increased by 20.2 percent to Rs 7.48 billion.
Total market capitalization declined by Rs 214 billion to Rs 8.642 trillion. The foreign investors remained net sellers of shares worth $9.76 million during the week as compared to net buying of $0.52 million recorded during the previous week. An analyst at JS Global Capital said that the market came under the political hammer yet again as the benchmark KSE-100 index lost 4.6 percent during the first three days of the week, however spurt of positive sectors-related news flows helped the index gain 844 points, or 2.1 percent on Friday. Overall, the KSE-100 index closed 1,097 points lower (down 2.6 percent) at 41,312 points. The cement sector helped pullback up the sentiments on Friday as rumours of settlement between manufacturers over pricing arrangement circulated in the market along with Wednesday''s release of better-than-expected dispatches numbers for the month of September 2017. The OMCs too fared well on expectations of increase in their margins during the ECC meeting scheduled for Friday, while Fertilisers and Textiles remained hopeful on release of subsidy and refund payments, respectively from the government. In the Oil & Gas sector, POL attracted the most interest as it confirmed strong oil and gas flows at its recent discovery (ie Jhandial-1) and its early tie-in. Some second tier stocks (like EPCL, ISL) too garnered investors interest over expectations of strong July-September 2017 results.
An analyst at Arif Habib Limited said that the outgoing week commenced on a downhill trend with the domestic equity bourse plunging to an 11 month low of 40,461 points, only to recover moderately to close at 41,313 points by week end (down by 2.6 percent). Political apprehension resulted in the KSE-100 index observing a choppy drift with volumes dipping by 4.3 percent. Along with political headwinds, key concerns that grabbed investors'' attention over the week were decline in cement prices in some parts of north-region during early week, fertiliser off take (urea sales down 81 percent on month-on-month basis) and) OMC sales (down 14 percent on month-on-month basis.). Negative sentiments were overplayed during the week due to excessive selling of funds, however, stocks bounced back in a rather flamboyant fashion on Friday, gaining 844 points in a day (up by 2 percent). For a change, investors kept aside political uncertainty to take advantage of attractive valuations, injecting money across the board in Cement, Auto and Banking stocks. Sectors that kept the index under stress were Commercial Banks (down 225 points), Cement (down 207 points), Fertilisers (down 152 points), Oil & Gas Marketing Companies (down 132 points), Pharmaceutical (down 63 points), Engineering (down 63 points) and Refinery (down 51 points). On scrip-wise basis major laggards remained HBL (down 105 points), LUCK (down 94 points), SNGP (down 92 points), ENGRO (down 60 points), SEARL (down 43 points) and DAWH (down 37 points). Support to the market was led by PSEL (up 36 points) and MARI (up 16 points).