KARACHI: Pakistan Stock Exchange remained under pressure during the outgoing week ended on September 16, 2022 due to profit taking on investor concerns over assessment of flood damages, political noise and recent round of rupee devaluation, market participants said. The benchmark KSE-100 declined by 268.67 points on week-on-week basis and closed at 41,679.49 points.
Trading activities however improved as average daily volumes on ready counter increased by32.3 percent to 183.17 million shares as compared to previous week’s average of 138.47 million shares. Average daily traded value on ready counter increased by 52.9 percent to Rs 7.05 billion against previous week’s average of Rs 4.61 billion.
BRIndex100 lost 17.41 points during this week to close at 4,179.03 points with average daily turnover of 145.652 million shares.
BRIndex30 however managed to close in positive at 15,578.11 points, up 356.44 points on week-on-week basis with average daily trading volumes of 100.141 million shares.
Flow-wise, Foreigners were the largest buyers with a net buy of $13.8 million and Banks ($1.3 million). While Insurance and MFs reported a net sell of $8.5 million and $3.6 million. Total market capitalization declined by Rs 107 billion during this week to Rs 6.854 trillion.
“Equity market performance continued to remain disappointing throughout the last week with index shedding 0.64 percent on WoW to close in at 41,679 points”, an analyst at AKD Securities said.
Despite IMF’s approval for a loan of $1.2billion, the local currency continued to loose ground against US$ during the week, depreciating by 3.7 percent on WoW to close around 237/US$ in the interbank market.
At the same time, the spread between the interbank and the open market continued to grow with US$ touching 249/US$ in the open market. SPI during the week eased off slightly with SPI index sliding by 19bps WoW in the week gone by.
Sector-wise, top performing sectors were vanaspati and allied (up 3.8 percent), Technology (up 3.6 percent), Textile Weaving (up 2.5 percent), Leasing (up 2.1 percent) and IPPs (up 1.8 percent), while the least favourite sectors were Tobacco (down 7.0 percent), Synthetic and Rayon (down 5.7 percent), Textile Spinning (down 3.6 percent), E&Ps (down 3.1 percent) and Miscellaneous (down 3.1 percent). Stock-wise, top performers in the KSE-100 were TRG (up 23.8 percent), HGFA (up 13.6 percent), JVDC (up 6.1 percent), ATLH (up 5.5 percent) and COLG (up 3.9 percent), while laggards were POL (down 13.5 percent), SHFA (down 13.2 percent), APL (down 9.1 percent), NATF (down 7.9 percent), and PAKT (down 7.1 percent).
Volume leaders were TRG (91.4 million shares), WTL (63.8 million shares) and KEL (57.5 million shares).
An analyst at JS Global Capital said that Pakistan equities closed the week on a negative note at 41,679, down 269points. Profit taking was witnessed during the week resulting from the assessment of flood damages, political noise and recent round of rupee devaluation.
As per APTMA, cotton crop production losses from rain and flooding could reach to $1.5billion. Fitch Solutions’ shared its latest report on Pakistan, according to which a reduction in agri production will likely lead to higher inflation, prompting SBP to tighten its monetary policy. On the other hand, World Bank signalled a rising global recession amid higher interest rates.
Key underperformers were E&P (down 3.1 percent), Engineering (down 2.7 percent) and Textiles (down 2.5 percent).
Copyright Business Recorder, 2022