Equities remain under pressure

Pakistan Stock Exchange remained under pressure during the outgoing week due to selling in various sectors.

BRIndex100 lost 32.27 points on week-on-week basis to close at 3,522.93 points. Average daily trading volumes stood at 116.707 million shares.

BRIndex30 decreased by 145.04 points during this week to close at 18,519.27 points with total turnover of 79.017 million shares.

KSE-100 Index declined by 212.69 points on week-on-week basis and closed at 33,657.46 million shares. Trading activities remained low as average daily volumes on ready counter decreased by 10.9 percent to 124.61 million shares as compared to previous week''s average of 139.78 million shares. Average daily trading value declined by 16.6 percent to Rs 3.95 billion.

An analyst at AKD Securities said that tensions on the eastern border and tough call from the FATF demanding swift action stoked a risk-off sentiment, with the KSE-100 losing 2.3 percent on week-on-week basis (down 785 points) on the first trading session of the week. The market was quick to recover and pared 86 percent of the earlier loses in the next three trading sessions, as the investors shifted their focus on positive macro reads (i.e. narrowing CAD, improving EODB ranking, and yield on short tenor government paper coming off).

Overall, the KSE-100 Index closed the week 0.63 percent lower at 33,657 points, down 213 points.

Top performers during the week in the AKD universe were DGKC (up 4.74 percent), HASCOL (up 4.63 percent), ASTL (up 4.3 percent), POL (up 3.70 percent) and KAPCO (up 3.57 percent) while, PIOC (down 15.15 percent), FFBL (down 10.16 percent), PSMC (down 6.19 percent) and NCL (down 5.89 percent) were the major losers.

An analyst at Arif Habib Limited said that the market commenced on a negative note with FATF warning to Pakistan echoing from last Friday. The negativity was cushioned as Pakistan steeply climbed the World Bank Ease of Doing Business Index from 136th to 108th. Further inversion in T-Bill yields continued to improve sentiment. However, duress on the political front amid opposition preparing for a protest against the government dampened sentiment towards end of the week.

Sector-wise negative contributions came from Commercial Banks (down 108 points), Cement (down 104 points) and Power Generation and Distribution (down 76 points) while positive contributions were led by Oil and Gas Exploration Companies (up 118 points), Food and Personal Care Products (up 47 points) and Fertilizer (up 30 points).

Scrip-wise negative contributions were led by LUCK (down 58 points), BAHL (down 44 points), HUBC (down 42 points), PSEL (down 35 points) and HBL (down 35 points).

Foreign buying was witnessed this week clocking-in at $2.8 million compared to a net sell of $2.1 million last week. Buying was witnessed in Cement ($2.0 million) and Fertilizer ($1.2 million). On the domestic front, major selling was reported by Individuals ($3.1 million) and Companies ($2.2 million).