KARACHI: Pakistan Stock Exchange remained under pressure during the outgoing week ended on April 08, 2022 due to investors concerns over political unrest after no-confidence against Prime Minister and devaluation in PKR against US$.
The benchmark KSE-100 plunged by 707.53 points on week-on-week basis and closed at 44,444.58 points. Trading activities remained thin as average daily volumes on the ready counter declined by 50.8 percent to 152.69 million shares as compared to previous week’s average of 310.09 million shares while average daily traded value on the ready counter decreased by 35.5 percent to Rs 5.22 billion.
BRIndex100 decreased by 103.86 points during this week and closed at 4,443.72 points with average daily turnover of 140.733 million shares.
BRIndex30 declined by declined by 506.77 points on week-on-week basis and closed at 15,914.08 points with average daily trading volumes of 96.008 million shares.
PSX bleeds on political unrest
The foreign investors remained net sellers of shares worth $3.78 million with the most being in Commercial Banks ($3.8 million), along with mutual funds (net sell: $12.4 million) which was absorbed by Individuals (net buy: $14.8 million) and Banks (net buy: $4.5 million). Total market capitalization declined by Rs 125 billion to Rs 7.474 trillion.
An analyst at AKD Securities said that the country was thrown in a political turmoil after Prime Minister Imran Khan had recommended the President to dissolve the National Assembly after the deputy speaker of the house had judged the notion of no confidence against the PM as unconstitutional amid foreign medaling in country’s politics. Resultantly, the market went into a meltdown, losing 1400 points in four trading sessions.
Rapidly depreciating PkR didn’t help the cause which lost nearly 2.2 percent in value against the Greenback between Monday and Thursday. However, after a week of uncertainty, country’s apex court took finally gave its verdict, effectively reversing the deputy speaker’s decision. Also, the rapid currency depreciation forced SBP to intervene and the central bank bumped up the discount rate by 250bps in an emergency meeting, to stem the further decline in currency value. Resultantly, the currency made a sharp recovery on Friday, appreciating by 1.9 percent on Friday while the market also posted a robust comeback, closing the week at 44,444 points level, down 1.6 percent on week-on-week basis.
Sector wise, Vanaspati and Allied Industries topped the performance chart, yielding 4.5 percent, followed by Chemicals (up 3.2 percent) while Engineering (down 7.9 percent) and Textile Weaving (down 6.8 percent) and Cements (down 6.0 percent) were the major laggards during the week.
Top performing stocks for the week were EPCL (up 10.4 percent), PAEL (up 5.1 percent), COLG (up 4.5 percent), JSCL (up 4.5 percent) and OLPL (up 4.3 percent), while laggards were DGKC (down 11.3 percent), ISL (down 10.8 percent), IGIHL (down 10.7 percent), HINOON (down 10.0 percent) and SCBPL (down 9.5 percent).
An analyst at JS Global Capital said it was a rollercoaster ride at the local bourse this week. The week started on a negative note in response to uncertainty on the political front where the index lost 1,250 points on the first trading day. The KSE-100 Index closed the week at 44,444, losing 1.6 percent on WoW where traded volume averaged at 153 million shares per day.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2022
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