KARACHI: Pakistan Stock Exchange remained under pressure during the outgoing week ended on April 28, 2022 on investor concerns over expected interest rate hike in upcoming monetary policy after abnormal increase in KIBOR and T-bill rates.

KIBOR reached 14-year high to 14.1 percent and T-Bill yields reaching 15 percent, hitting a 22-year high during the outgoing week.

It was four-day week, as the PSX remained closed on Friday, April 29, 2022 on account of Juma-tul-Wida.

The benchmark KSE-100 index declined by 303.61 points on week-on-week basis or 0.67 percent and closed at 45,249.41 points. Trading activities however improved as average daily volumes on ready counter increased by 25.6 percent to 282.08 million shares as compared to previous week’s average of 224.64 million shares while average daily traded value on the ready counter increased by 2.8 percent to Rs 7.69 billion.

PSX nosedives in last trading session before Eid holidays

BRIndex100 lost 71.36 points during this week to close at 4,551.39 points with average daily turnover of 263.719 million shares.

BRIndex30 plunged by 963.02 points on week-on-wee basis to close at 16,336.22 points with average daily trading volumes of 192.653 million shares.

The foreign investors remained net buyers of shares with net inflows of $3.2 million during this week. Total market capitalization declined by Rs 89 billion during this week to Rs 7.519 trillion. “Following the last week’s 1,049 points sell off, the market recovered 520 points on the first trading session this week on the back positive development with IMF”, an analyst at AKD Securities said. The IMF delegation is expected to visit Pakistan in May. In addition to this, the length of the program is also expected to increase till June’23 with additional $2.0 billion financing arrangement, taking the total program size to $8.0 billion.

The upward movement, however, was short lived as the returns got trimmed in upcoming sessions when KIBOR reached 14-year high to 14.1 percent and T-Bill yields reaching 15 percent, hitting a 22-year high. As a result, the benchmark KSE-100 index posted net decline of 304 points to close in at 45,249 points, down 0.67 percent on week-on-week basis.

Sector wise, the highest gainers were cable & electrical goods (up 22.4 percent) and Vanaspati & Allied Industries (up 1.2 percent). Close-end Mutual Funds declined the most (down 14.0 percent), followed by synthetic & rayon, down 5.3 percent).

Stock wise, top performers were LOTCHEM (up 20.7 percent), Nestle (up 4.6 percent), BAFL (up 3.0 percent), ABOT (up 2.9 percent) and BAHL (up 2.2 percent), while laggards were DCL (down 13.6 percent), KTML (down 8.4 percent), MUGHAL (down 7.3 percent), PTC (down 7.1 percent) and FFBL (down 7.0 percent).

Flow wise, Insurance Companies emerged as the net sellers offloading $6.71 million, followed by Mutual Funds ($4.87 million) and banks and DFIs ($2.93 million). On the flipside, foreign investors have accumulated shares worth $3.17 million during the week. Similarly, individuals and companies remained on the buying side, with a net buy of $5.78 million and $2.98 million, respectively.

An analyst at JS Global Capital said that after a jump start to the week on the first day, KSE-100 index continued to decline thereon through the rest of the week, closing in at 45,249, down by 0.7 percent on WoW.

Major contributors to the market decline were the cement, chemical and IT sectors on a WoW basis.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2022