KARACHI: Pakistan Stock Exchange remained in the grip of bears during the outgoing week due to heavy selling on investor concerns over economic uncertainty along with rising interest rates and bond yield that led to a negative sentiment in the market.
Moody’s downgrade for Pakistan from ‘Stable’ to ‘Negative’ fuelled bearish sentiments of the already hesitant investors on the last trading session of the week.
The benchmark KSE-100 index plunged by 1,546.57 points on week-on-week basis and closed below 42,000 psychological-level at 41,314.88 points. Trading activities also remained thin due to investor lack of interest as average daily volumes on ready counter decreased by 25.2 percent to 209.92 million shares as compared to previous week’s average of 280.70 million shares while average daily traded value on ready counter declined by 23.9 percent to Rs 6.03 billion against previous week’s Rs 7.92 billion.
BRIndex100 decreased by 202.32 points during this week to close at 4,070.37 points with average daily turnover of 193.475 million shares.
BRIndex30 declined by 1,032.83 points on week-on-week basis to close at 14,536.50 points with average daily trading volumes of 135.366 million shares.
The foreign investors remained sellers of shares worth $419,935 during this week. Total market capitalization declined by Rs 192 billion during this week and stood at Rs 6.931 trillion.
“In a week which saw sluggish movement in the first three days, the market took a hit on Thursday and Friday, with the KSE-100 losing 3.6 percent on week-on-week basis to close at 41,315 points”, an analyst at AKD Securities said adding that economic uncertainty along with rising interest rates and bond yields have led to a negative sentiment in the market.
Sector-wise, the top performing sectors were Vanaspati & Allied Industries (up 10.7 percent), and sugar & allied industries (up 3.5 percent), while the least favourite sectors were automobiles parts & accessories (down 9.7 percent), Engineering (down 9.6 percent), Leasing Companies (down 9.5 percent), Woolen (down 8.8 percent), and Cement (down 8.4 percent).
Stock-wise, top performers were POML (up 16.1 percent), SCBPL (up 4.6 percent), ABOT (up 2.9 percent), COLG (up 1.6 percent) and ABL (up 1.5 percent), while laggards were TGL (down 12.4 percent), THALL (down 12.1 percent), CHCC (down 11.7 percent), PGLC (down 11.3 percent) and PSX (down 11.2 percent).
Flow-wise, insurance companies remained the net sellers, offloading $7.8 million followed by mutual funds ($4.1 million) while individuals and companies were on the buying side, with a net buy of $5.6 million.
An analyst at JS Global Capital said that Pakistan equities closed the week on a negative note at 41,315, reporting a decline of 3.6 percent on WoW. Moody’s downgrade for Pakistan from ‘Stable’ to ‘Negative’ fuelled bearish sentiments of the already hesitant investors on the last trading session of the week. However, the government finally took tough measures this week for the restoration of IMF programme, reflecting from the decision of hiking POL prices through withdrawal of PDC and an increase in electricity tariff. The Auto sector was among key underperformers this week over bleak outlook of the sector. Other underperformers included Cement and Glass sectors due to -negative growth expected in FY23 as second round impact of inflation would kick in.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2022