KSE-100 Index falls 1.18% owing to political noise

The Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) endured a gloomy session on Friday and the KSE-100 Index plunged 1.18% owing to increase in political noise.

Lack of clarity on whether Punjab Governor Baligh ur Rehman will dissolve the provincial assembly impacted the trading environment. Punjab Chief Minister Pervaiz Elahi on Thursday sent a summary to the governor recommending the dissolution of the assembly.

KSE-100 rises 0.11% in turbulent session

At close on Friday, the KSE-100 finished with a decrease of 480.44 points or 1.18% to settle at 40,323.45.

Trading began with a dip and the market remained range-bound for the rest of the session to close in the red. The sell-off accelerated in the second session and enhanced the losses.

All index-heavy sectors including automobile, cement, banks, chemical and oil spaces ended the day downward.

A report from Capital Stake stated the bears conquered the PSX on last trading session of the week.

“Indices slipped lower and lower all day long while volumes fell from previous close,” it said. “Despite the announcements on UAE and Saudi Arabia, political turmoil created due to recent instructions by the chief minister of Punjab to dissolve the assembly caused mayhem in the stock market.”

On the economic front, foreign exchange reserves held by the SBP fell by a hefty $1.23 billion to a highly critical level of $4.34 billion, data released on Thursday showed. This is the lowest level of SBP’s reserves since February 2014.

Rupee registered depreciation against the US dollar for the 18th successive session in the inter-bank market on Friday and declined Re0.01 to close at 228.15.

Sectors painting the benchmark KSE-100 index in red included, oil and gas exploration (170.91 points), technology and communication (47.51 points) and banking (46.10 points).

Volume on the all-share index inched down to 173.3 million from 175.4 million on Thursday. The value of shares traded fell to Rs4.6 billion from Rs5.9 billion recorded in the previous session.

Hascol was the volume leader with 25.1 million shares, followed by WorldCall Telecom with 21.4 million shares, and Pakistan Petroleum with 12.9 million shares.

Shares of 324 companies were traded on Friday, of which 81 registered an increase, 218 recorded a fall, and 25 remained unchanged.