Bulls take a breather

Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) Tuesday opened on a positive note pushing the KSE-100 index to 43,296.38 points intra-day high. However, investors opted to offload their holdings that pushed the index below 43,000 psychological level. The KSE-100 index closed at 42,811.27 points with a net loss of 249.44 points. Trading activity improved significantly as the daily trading volumes at the ready counter increased to 585.214 million shares as compared to 460.221 million shares traded Monday.
The market capitalization decreased by Rs 36 billion to stand at Rs 8.721 trillion. Out of the total 426 active scrips, 257 closed in negative, 154 in positive while the value of 15 stocks remained unchanged. Bank of Punjab was the volume leader with 60.700 million shares. It gained Rs 0.97 to close at Rs 19.52 followed by Aisha Steel Mills that increased by Rs 0.96 to close at Rs 14.83 with 41.132 million shares. Sui Southern Gas declined by Rs 2.07 to close at Rs 39.57 with 29.927 million shares.
Philip Morris Pak and Siemens Pak were the top gainers with Rs 92.71 and Rs 44.30, respectively to close at Rs 2,111.11 and Rs 1,200.00. Wyeth Pak and Sanofi-Aventis were the top losers with Rs 154.20 and Rs 84.90, respectively to close at Rs 4,331.63 and Rs 2,054.23.
An analyst at Global Securities said the market started off with a positive note, giving an intra-day high by 231 points. However, soon after the ending of Panama case hearing, the market fell by 288 points and closed at 42,811 points. The fall also came from possible foreign selling as the PKR depreciated further against USD in the open market, crossing PKR 108/USD. Resultantly, 3 major scripts of the banking sector: HBL (-1.43%), UBL (2.33%) and MCB (-2.96%) dragged the index most by -147 points. Pressure also came from the Textile sector as NML (-4.9%), KTML (-3.96%) and GATM (-4.95%) registered a tremendous downfall.
Nabeel Haroon at JS Global Capital said that banking sector remained under pressure as the State Bank of Pakistan in its Monetary Policy Statement on Saturday kept the interest rate unchanged at 5.75 percent. On the contrary, investors were anticipating an increase in policy rate given the rising trend in inflation (CPI) numbers. MCB and UBL were major losers in the banking sector. E&P sector continued its downward trajectory on the back of prevailing uncertainty that Opec members might not reach to an agreement on production cut. Opec members Iran and Iraq have expressed their reservations over production cut, whereas Russia has refused to participate in the talks with Opec members in their meeting on Wednesday in Vienna. POL and OGDC were major losers of the E&P sector.