KARACHI: Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) remained under pressure during the outgoing week ended on September 03, due to investors concerns over prevailing geopolitical situation, depreciating Pak rupee and country's potential downgrade from MSCI Emerging Market to Frontier Market.
BRIndex100 lost 11.94 points on week-on-week basis to close at 5,089.31 points. Average daily trading volumes stood at 389.793 million shares.
BRIndex30 closed at 25,072.28 points, up 233.69 points to close at 25,072.28 points with average daily turnover of 257.967 million shares.
KSE-100 index declined by 179.06 points on week-on-week basis and closed at 46,957.47 points. Trading activities however slightly improved as average daily volumes on ready counter increased by 20.2 percent to 461.51 million shares as compared to previous week's average of 384.09 million shares. Average daily traded value stood at Rs 13.80 billion, up 6.1 percent.
The foreign investors remained net sellers of shares worth $5.9 million during this week), with net selling broadly witnessed in the Commercial Banks (net: $4.4 million) and Cement (net: $1.3 million) sectors. Total market capitalization declined by Rs 10 billion to Rs 8.240 trillion. An analyst at AKD Securities said the KSE-100 index remained under pressure throughout the week, retracting by 0.4 percent on week-on-week basis to close at 46,957 points.
He said geopolitical uncertainty, unabated PkR depreciation and concerns related to 4th Covid-19 wave continued to dampen investor sentiments, thus keeping the index performance in check. Rapid Pak rupee depreciation, of 0.6 percent on WoW, has raised some eyebrows as country experiences a surge in import bill.
Top performers of the market included GATI (up 13.9 percent), SYS (up 10.7 percent), ATRL (up 8.1 percent), FABL (up 7.4 percent) and EPCL (up 6.2 percent) while laggards included PMPK (down 6.4 percent), PIOC (down 7.1 percent), HMM (down 7.8 percent), PSMC (down 12.4 percent) and STJT (down 12.6 percent).
Top volume leaders included WTL (309.2 million shares), GGL (82.6 million shares), TELE (176.4 million shares), BYCO (128.7.3 million shares) and YOUW (83.4 million shares).
Flow wise, Individuals were the biggest buyers with (net buy of $5.06 million) followed by Insurance Companies (net buy of $3.95 million) while Mutual Funds stood on the other side with (net sell of $3.84 million) followed by Companies (net sell of 1.30 million).
An analyst at JS Global Capital said the KSE-100 Index declined by 0.4 percent on WoW to close at 46,957 levels as investor confidence was shaken up by the mounting import bill of August 2021. With another month witnessing an import bill north of $6 billion, market participants chose to offload positions and wait for further clarity on the macro-economic situation of the country.
This was also built upon PKR depreciation against the US$, which touched its all-time low of Rs 167 during the week. On sector-wise performance, Refineries rebounded this week over news of the Refinery Policy close to finalization.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2021