KARACHI: Pakistan Stock Exchange witnessed bearish trend during the outgoing week ended on February 25, 2022 due to panic selling on investor concerns over Russia-Ukraine conflict.
The share market witnessed year’s worst decline on Thursday after Russian attack on Ukraine. Uncertainty prevailed throughout the week.
The benchmark KSE-100 index plunged by 1691.63 points on week-on-week basis and closed at 43,984.24 points from previous week’s closing level of 45,675.87 points. Trading activities however improved as average daily volumes on ready counter increased by 19.7 percent to 228.58 million shares as compared to previous week’s average of 190.92 million shares while average daily traded value on ready counter increased by 29.3 percent to Rs 6.71 billion.
BRIndex100 decreased by 232.61 points during this week to close at 4,434.51 points with average daily turnover of 195.552 million shares.
BRIndex30 declined by 1834.52 points on week-on-week basis to close at 15,965.07 points with average daily trading volumes of 135.914 million shares.
The foreign investors remained net sellers of shares worth $3.2 million. Total market capitalization declined by Rs 259 billion and stood at Rs 7.537 trillion.
An analyst at AKD Securities said that negative sentiment engulfed the market in the outgoing week following the escalation in Russia-Ukraine conflict where President Putin gave green signal to invade Ukraine. Following this news, the benchmark KSE-100 index slumped 3.0 percent alone in Thursday’s session, pushing the index down to 43,984 points by the end of week, a negative return of 3.7 percent on week-on-week basis.
During the week, Brent Oil flirted with $100/bbl level while other global commodities such as natural gas/wheat/coal rallied 24/16/4 percent on supply concerns.
The top performing sectors included Leasing Companies (up 13.2 percent), close-end mutual funds (up 7.4 percent), REIT (up 5.66 percent), tobacco (up 2.0 percent) and jute (flat on WoW) while the least favourite sectors during the week were refinery (down 11.6 percent), textile weaving (down 10.2 percent), technology and communication (down 9.8 percent), engineering (down 8.9 percent) and woollen (down 7.33 percent).
Stock wise, top performers were NCL (up 5.2 percent), HMB (up 3.1 percent), MTL (up 3.0 percent), PAKT (up 2.9 percent) and UBL (up 2.6 percent), while laggards were TRG (down 17.8 percent), ANL (down 14.7 percent), YOUW (down 14.2 percent), ATRL (down 12.8 percent) and JSCL (down 12.4 percent.
Volume leaders for the week were WTL (120.7 million shares), TELE (48.3 million shares), HUMNL (46.63 million shares), BOP (46.3 million shares) and KEL (38.75 million shares).
Flow-wise, mutual funds emerged the net sellers, offloading $15.2 million followed by foreigners ($3.2 million) and other organizations ($1.2 million) while companies, individuals and banks remained on the buying side with net buy of $9.5 million, $4.3 million and $4.0 million, respectively. Total market capitalization declined by Rs 259 billion and stood at Rs 7.537 trillion.
An analyst at JS Global Capital said that the week started on a bearish note but the worst day for stock market this week was Thursday when Russia officially launched intervention in Ukraine. The KSE-100-index shed 1,300 points on that day alone, and closed the week losing 1,692 points, at 43,984.
Commodity prices were also triggered where Brent Oil crossed the $100 mark following the move. Foremost reason for negative momentum during the week was the anxiety that SBP might move toward monetary tightening in light of rising commodity prices due to the Ukraine-Russia conflict.
Foreigners remained net sellers of $3.2 million this week. Largest selling was witnessed in the Cement Sector ($2.1 million) followed by the Technology ($1.7 million) and the Fertilizer ($0.5 million) sectors.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2022