KARACHI: Pakistan Stock Exchange remained under pressure during the outgoing week ended on April 02, due to heavy selling on investors concerns over increasing corona virus cases and expected lock down in the country.
BRIndex-100 decreased by 181.90 points on week-on-week basis to close at 4,726.94 points. Average daily trading volumes stood at 349.083 million shares.
BRIndex-30 declined by 1,753.21 points to close at 24,379.27 points with average daily turnover of 254.052 million shares.
KSE-100 index plunged by 1,220.68 points on wee-on-week basis and closed at 44,300.95 points. Trading activities remained low as average daily volumes on ready counter decreased by 18.4 percent to 377.45 million shares as compared to previous week’s average of 462.57 million shares. Average daily trading value on ready counter declined by 17.3 percent to Rs 20.40 billion.
The foreign investors remained net sellers of shares during the week with net selling of $4.93 million together with Mutual Funds with net selling of $11.40 million and Brokers with net selling of $5.48 million while the selling was absorbed by Insurance with net buying of $6.79 million accompanied by Individuals with net buying of $5.39 million and Banks/DFIs with net buying of $4.53 million. Total market capitalization declined by Rs 202 billion to Rs 7.834 trillion.
An analyst at AKD Securities said that weak sentiment of last week continued to cast its shadow on the stock market with KSE-100 shedding 1,221 points during the week, closing at 44,301 points, down 2.7 percent on week-on-week basis.
Intensifying Covid-19 across the country was already keeping the market jittery but a series of changes across different ministries further weakened the sentiment. One prominent change was removal of Special Assistant to Prime Minister on petroleum which cast doubts over timely approval of new refinery policy hence refinery sector led the decline for the week, down 12.6 percent on WoW followed by technology sector as rupees appreciation is expected to dent the profitability with majority of the earnings being dollar based for the companies.
Even a lower than expected CPI of 9.1 percent against consensus expectation of 9.5 percent failed to provide any strength to the market.
Top performers for the week were SCBP (up 10.3 percent), SRVI (up 8.7 percent), PSMC (up 7.9 percent), GATI (up 7.6 percent) and ENGRO (up 5.8 percent) whereas laggards were TRG (down 18.3 percent), ATRL (down 16.1 percent), HMM (down 13.2 percent), ANL (down 11.8 percent) and HASCOL (down 11.5 percent).
An analyst at JS Global Capital said that bears stormed the local bourse as the KSE-100 lost 1,221 points during the week to close at 44,301 levels. Such sentiments may have emanated from the revised restrictions by the government in an effort to stem the sharp rise in the Covid-19 positivity rates beyond 10 percent in some cities.
On the political front there were further reshuffles as the portfolio of Finance was taken from Dr. Hafeez Shaikh and handed over to Hammad Azhar while the portfolio of Petroleum was given to Tabish Gauhar.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2021
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