Activities remain low

Pakistan Stock Exchange remained under pressure due to selling in various sectors during the one-day trading week before Eid holidays. The stock market opened only on Monday, June 3, 2019 before Eid holidays and remained closed from Tuesday to Friday.
BRIndex100 lost 59.6 points to close at 3,717.91 points with total trading volumes of 121.392 million shares. BRIndex30 declined by 218.57 points to close at 18,825.49 points with 97.681 million shares. The KSE-100 Index plunged by 469.50 points and closed at the level of 35,505.29 points. Due to last trading day before Eid holidays, trading activities remained low and turnover on ready counter stood at 124.639 million shares.
The foreign investors remained net sellers of shares worth $2.3 million. Total market capitalization declined by Rs 93 billion to stand at Rs 7.147 trillion. Analysts said that the market participants opted to offload their holdings on available margins before long Eid holidays. The investors' participation also remained low and the market witnessed very thin trading activities during one day trading week. Pakistan Stock Market remained under pressure during the month of May 2019. "The outgoing month (May 2019) was the tale of two halves, where the market lost 7.0 percent in 1H on the back of uncertainty looming over IMF program coupled with its harsh conditionalities in shape of prior actions", an analyst at Topline Securities said.
Eventually staff level agreement between IMF authorities and Pakistan was reached on May 12. Later, in second half, the government succumbed to IMF prior actions where PKR further weakened and early monetary policy meeting was called. "This along with Hafeez Shaikh's assurance for formation of stock support fund led a short rally in market, where index gained 5 percent," he said. "Consequently, the market closed the month on negative note by losing 2 percent," he added.
Commercial banks remained top performers during the month with gain of 136 points to index, while fertilizer remained top laggard with deletion of 277 points. The foreign investors remained net buyers of shares worth $18.415 million during the month of May 2019 as compared to outflows of $73.244 million in the same month in 2018.