Bearish sentiment prevailed at the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) as the benchmark KSE-100 Index lost nearly 450 points on Thursday.
At close, the benchmark index settled at 70,657.64, a decrease of 444.90 points or 0.63%.
Across-the-board selling pressure was witnessed especially among key sectors including automobile assemblers, chemical, commercial banks, fertiliser, oil and gas exploration companies and OMCs, with index-heavy stocks of OGDC, POL, HASCOL, pso, SSGC, SHEL, and NBP trading in the red.
As per market analysts, the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) release of the $1.1-billion loan tranche failed to excite investors as they were fixated on the unchanged policy rate by the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) in its meeting on Monday.
Globally, Asian stocks and US futures rose on Thursday after the Federal Reserve downplayed risks of an interest rate hike, while the yen was bumpy after another burst of suspected intervention from Japan.
Shortly after Fed Chair Jerome Powell had finished telling reporters the Fed may have to leave rates elevated, the yen surged against the dollar.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan climbed 0.6%, led by a 2% surge in Hong Kong. Tokyo’s Nikkei was flat.
On Tuesday, selling pressure was also witnessed at the PSX, as the benchmark KSE-100 Index lost 593 points to settle at 71,102.55.
The stock market was closed on Wednesday on account of the Labor Day holiday.
In a key development, Pakistan’s headline inflation clocked in at 17.3% on a year-on-year basis in April, the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) said on Thursday, lower than the reading in March when it stood at 20.7%. On a month-on-month basis, the reading decreased to 0.4%.
Pakistan’s trade deficit shrank 18% to $19.5 billion during July-April (10MFY24) due to a considerable reduction in imports and an increase in exports, data released by the PBS showed.
Meanwhile, the Pakistani rupee remained largely stable against the US dollar in the inter-bank market on Thursday. At close, the local unit settled at 278.3, a gain of Re0.01 against the greenback, as per the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP).
Volume on the all-share index decreased to 437 million from 560.55 million a session ago.
The value of shares also declined to Rs19.02 billion from Rs25.73 billion in the previous session.
K-Electric Ltd was the volume leader with 30.10 million shares, followed by WorldCall Telecom with 25.12 million shares, and B.O.Punjab with 20.17 million shares.
Shares of 365 companies were traded on Thursday, of which 103 registered an increase, 234 recorded a fall, while 28 remained unchanged.