Pakistan Stock Exchange remained under pressure during the outgoing week ended on February 22, 2019 due to selling in various sectors. BRIndex100 lost 57.19 points on week-on-week basis to close at 4,262.59 points. Average daily volumes stood at 95.744 million shares. BRIndex30 decreased by 878.15 points during this week to close at 22,139.82 points with average daily turnover of 65.595 million shares.
KSE-100 index declined by 470.54 points on week-on-week basis and closed at 40,016.13 points. Trading activities remained thin as average daily volumes on ready counter decreased by 22.1 percent to 105.34 million shares as compared to previous week's average of 135.27 million shares. Average daily trading value declined by 13.7 percent to Rs 5.35 billion.
The foreign investors remained net buyers of shares worth $3.5 million during this week as compared to an inflow of $12.1 million in previous week. Total market capitalization declined by Rs 88 billion during this week to Rs 7.954 trillion.
An analyst at AKD Securities said that despite positive news flows at the start (Saudi Crown Prince's visit and accompanying in-vestments) a barrage of weak volumes, mediocre results (with payouts skipped by IPPs) and lack of concrete development on the passage of the Supplementary Finance Bill through parliament, kept a hold on equity market performance with the KSE-100index slipping 1.16 percent on week-on-week basis, to close at 40,016 points.
Gains during the week were led by PSO (up 3.8 percent), MCB (up 3.1 percent), OGDC (up 2.8 percent), POL (up 1.6 percent), whereas laggards were KAPCO (down 11.2 percent), PSMC (down 8.5 percent), UBL (down 7.6 percent) and MLCF (down 6.8 percent).
An analyst at JS Global Capital said that the market retained an overall sluggish momentum, closing down 1.2 percent during this week. This was despite highly positive news emerging over last weekend where Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman (MBS) arrived in Pakistan with a business delegation and announced investments in key sectors of the economy, with total investments of $21 billion (and the number could grow further in the future). These investments include a $10 billion oil refinery, investments in renewable energy, petrochemicals, food processing and agriculture to name a few. All of the positivity that could have emanated from this news was completely wiped off due to escalating tensions with India.
During the week, statements from the other side of the border to isolate Pakistan diplomatically, moves such as imposition of 200 percent customs duty on Pakistani exports into India and other punitive measures caused market participants to proceed with caution and had an overbearing impact on performance.
Corporate results that were generally in line with or higher than expectations in some cases did little to improve the trend. Exacerbating the issue was the coincidence of the week with futures' rollover, which also negatively affected market performance.
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