Equities remain stressful

Pakistan Stock Exchange remained under heavy pressure during the outgoing week ended on June 28, 2019 due to selling in almost all sectors. The stock market closed on negative note during first four trading sessions, however investors' confidence revived and the market witnessed some fresh buying on attractive low levels that supported the market to close on positive note on the last day of the week.
BRIndex100 lost 148.83 points on week-on-week basis to close at 3,543.64 points. Average daily trading volumes stood at 134.886 million shares. BRIndex30 decreased by 829.43 points to close at 18,017.08 points with average daily turnover of 85.382 million shares.
KSE-100 Index declined by 1,223.67 points on week-on-week basis and closed at 33,901.58 points. Trading activities however slightly improved as average daily volumes increased by 17.4 percent to 146.45 million shares as compared to previous week's average of 124.79 million shares. Average daily trading value increased by 7.8 percent to Rs 4.57 billion.
Total market capitalization increased by Rs 176 billion to Rs 6.887 trillion.
An analyst at AKD Securities said that continuing with previous week's trend KSE-100 Index lost another 3.5 percent on week-on-week basis to close at 33,902 points. Apart from the regulatory tightening that has been the dominant factor hurting the market performance for the past weeks, fiscal year-end phenomena (where historically market has remained under pressure), exchange rate volatility (PkR/USD touched a high of 163.5 before closing at 159.5), and revision in gas prices (up to 191 percent), impacted weekly performance. Concerns over tail risks have overshadowed the positives including the $3 billion commitment from Qatar in the form of deposits and FDI.
Amongst the major sectors, resurgence of oil price (WTI up 2.8 percent) due to tensions in middle-east and currency devaluation failed to invigorate interest in E&Ps (down 4.97 percent) while weak demand scenario for Cements and OMCs impacted respective sector performance (down 5.35 percent and 5.42 percent respectively). This is despite recovery in cement prices by Rs 15-20/bag over the last week.
Commercial Banks lost 2.6 percent possibly on concerns over NPL accretion whereas fertilizers were down 2.6 percent on gas price hike. Top performers in AKD Universe during the week were, FATIMA (up 10.6 percent), EFOODS (up 6.9 percent), KEL (up 3.3 percent), KAPCO (up 2.5 percent) and INDU (up 2.3 percent), while PSMC (down 18.6 percent), GWLC (down 11.2 percent), NBP (down 10.8 percent), PAEL (down 10.8 percent) and PIOC (down 9.9 percent) remained the worst performers.
An analyst at JS Global Capital said that the market ended another stressful week (and an equally stressful financial year) in the red at 33,901 points, posting a loss of 3.5 percent.
This week's closing marks the 30th negative one during the outgoing financial year during which the index dipped 19 percent. Refineries and Oil & Gas Marketing remained the worst performing sectors during the week, underperforming the falling KSE-100 by 2.1 percent and 1.9 percent, respectively. In terms of individual stocks, PSMC (down 18 percent), HCAR (down 12 percent) and INIL (down 11 percent) were among the weakest performers of the week.