KARACHI: Pakistan Stock Exchange witnessed volatile activity throughout the outgoing week ended on March 18, 2022 due to political unrest in the country.
The benchmark KSE-100 index declined by 623.36 points on week-on-week basis and closed at 43,029.97 points. Trading activities also remained thin due to investors’ lack of interest as average daily volumes on ready counter decreased by 18.6 percent to 173.92 million shares as compared to previous week’s average of 213.58 million shares while average daily traded value on ready counter declined by 31.2 percent to Rs 26.17 billion against previous week’s Rs 38.30 billion.
BRIndex100 lost 91.18 points during this week to close at 4,260.69 points with average daily turnover of 136.224 million shares.
BRIndex30 plunged by 732.73 points on week-on-week basis to close at 14,875.01 with average daily trading volumes of 94.019 million shares.
The foreign investors remained as the net sellers, offloading $4.9 million during this week followed by Individuals ($3.2 million) and Brokers ($1.7 million). On the other hand, Banks, Companies, Insurance Companies and Other organizations were on the buying side, with a net buy of $4.4 million, $2.9 million, $2.0 million and $1.0 million, respectively. Total market capitalization declined by Rs 176 billion to Rs 7.274 trillion. “Following previous week’s 2.0 percent decline in KSE-100 index, the market shed another 623 points during the outgoing week, mainly during the last two sessions,” an analyst at AKD Securities said. This resulted in 1.43 percent WoW decline in total market capitalization of KSE-100 index.
“The market’s downward trajectory has been due to further escalation in country’s political uncertainty as we approach close to 28th March, the day when no confidence vote is due,” the analyst said. Similarly, the uncertainty in global commodity markets continued to persist, he added.
Although oil prices fell below $100/barrel during the week, the price rebounded back to $100/barrel which adversely impacted the local market.
Sector-wise, the gains remained small, with the top performing sectors being leather (up 4.4 percent), woollen (up 3.9 percent), sugar (up 2.3 percent), real estate (up 1.1 percent) and foods (up 0.9 percent). The least favorite sectors were E&P (down 6.4 percent), leasing (down 5.6 percent), closed end mutual funds (down 4.2 percent), refinery (down 4.2 percent) and banks (down 4.2 percent). Stock-wise, top performers were JSCL (up 16.3 percent), SML (up 7.3 percent), KTML (up 4.4 percent), BNWM (up 3.9 percent) and NESTLE (up 3.5 percent) while laggards were PPL (down 10.5 percent), TRG (down 8.1 percent), BAFL (down 8.0 percent), SCBPL (down 7.9 percent) and AVN (down 7.9 percent).
An analyst at JS Global Capital said the KSE-100 saw volatility throughout the week amid political uncertainty and implications of the Russia-Ukraine war, closing in at 43,030 points, down by 1.4 percent on WoW.
Among sectors, heavy weight sectors such as Banks and E&Ps exerted downward pressure on the market declining by 4.2 percent and 6.4 percent on WoW respectively while Food sector remained among the gainers increasing by 0.9 percent.
Foreigners remained sellers during the week with net foreign selling rising to $4.9 million from $3.1 million last week where major selling was witnessed in Banks ($6.0 million) and OMCs ($0.7 million).
Copyright Business Recorder, 2022
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