KARACHI: Pakistan Stock Exchange remained under heavy selling pressure during the outgoing week ended on November 26, due to across the board selling by both local and foreign investors.
KSE-100 index plunged by 2,375.25 points on week-on-week basis and closed at 44,114.16 points. Trading activities however slightly
improved as average daily volumes on ready counter increased by 8.2 percent to 264.38 million shares as compared to previous week’s average of 244.46 million shares. Average daily traded value on ready counter increased by 13.3 percent and stood at Rs 10.46 billion.
BRIndex100 decreased by 284.34 points on week-on-week basis to close at 4,503.17 points with average daily turnover of 216.817 million shares.
BRIndex30 declined by 1794.44 points during this week to close at 18,201.08 points with average daily volumes of 135.102 million shares.
The foreign investors also remained on the selling side and withdrew $39.146 million from local equity market, where the chunk once again belonged to the Banking sector ($15.7 million). Total market capitalization declined by Rs 357 billion to stand at Rs 7.587 trillion.
“Despite the positive news-flow regarding the IMF staff level agreement, the KSE-100 index trimmed the last week’s gains on account of unexpected hike of 150bps in policy rate by SBP”, analyst at AKD Securities said.
In addition to this, the Current Account Deficit (CAD) widened by $1.66 billion in October 2021 and continued to increase from 4.1 percent to 4.7 percent of the GDP, expanding beyond the target of 2-3 percent for the entire financial year.
With negative news-flows engulfing the investors, the confidence remained jittery. At the same time, the PKR continued its downward trajectory against US$, hitting a low of PKR176.5/$. As a result, KSE-100 index lost its value during the week by 5.1 percent on week-on-week basis to close at 44,114 points in contrast to 46,489 points last week.
Stock wise, major performers were GATI (up 30.9 percent), HMM (up 12.8 percent), ATLH (up 4.6 percent), EFUG (up 3.7 percent) and HGFA (up 3.6 percent), while laggards were ANL (down 16 percent), SEARL (down 15.8 percent), TRG (down 15.3 percent), DGKC (down 13.7 percent) and PIOC (down 13.7 percent).
An analyst at JS Global Capital said that the local bourse continued to witness a massacre, going back to 44,114 level by plummeting 2,375 points over increasing economic concerns amid IMF releasing the Staff Concluding Statement on the Sixth Review under the Extended Fund Facility with Pakistan at the start of the week. On the other hand, some recovery in participation came in with average daily trading volumes increasing by 8.2 percent to 264 million shares.
Following announcement of 150bps increase in the Policy Rate at the end of the preceding week, 6M KIBOR crawled up by 115bps during the outgoing week, reaching 10.31 percent. Selling spree was witnessed across the board where main board sectors such as Oil & Gas Marketing Companies (down 7.0 percent), Technology & Communication (down 7.8 percent) and Cement (down 9.4 percent) sectors led the correction.
Nonetheless, being beneficiaries of higher interest rates, the Banking sector outperformed the benchmark index by 2.5 percent, albeit declining by 2.6 percent as the sector continued to face selling pressures from foreign investors.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2021