Stocks closed in red on Friday, maintaining a bearish trend for a third consecutive session as investors weighed reports of depletin
Stocks closed in red on Friday, maintaining a bearish trend for a third consecutive session as investors weighed reports of depleting foreign exchange reserves of the country and external debt repayables of $10.35 billion by December 2023, traders said.
Uncertainties on political and economic fronts of the country triggered bearish trend in the market leading to another dull session.
The Pakistan Stock Exchange’s (PSX) benchmark KSE 100-share Index closed lower by 86.73 points or 0.22 percent to 40,065.32 points against 40,152.05 points recorded in the last session. The highest index of the day remained at 40,235.58 points while the lowest level of the day was recorded at 39,894.43 points.
Equities, which have been experiencing burnt of political and economic turmoil in the country, couldn’t recover on the fears of worst to come, especially huge debt repayments in the next fiscal.
“Stocks closed lower on concerns for dwindling FX reserves near to $3.5 billion and reports of $10.35 billion external debt repayables by Dec’23,” said Ahsan Mehanti, an analyst at Arif Habib Corp.
He informed that a mid-session support was witnessed on reports of Pakistan expecting over $20 billion in investments and positive outcome of PM constituted Special Investment Facilitation Council and PM’s productive Paris summit commitments to IMF chief.
Uncertainty over IMF board approval of IMF 9th Review played a catalyst role in bearish close, according to Mehanti.
Topline Securities, in its post-budget note, stated that lackluster activity was observed on the last trading session of the week amid lack of triggers, where index traded between its intraday high of 84 points and intraday low of -258 points with low volumes to close at 40,065 level, down by 0.22 percent.
Major positive contribution to the index came from HMB, MARI, ABOT, SHEL and HBL, as they cumulatively contributed 60 points to the index, on the flip side MCB, TRG, SYS, DAWH and UBL lost value to weigh down on the index by -78 points.
Traded volume and value for the day stood at 136 million shares and Rs3.3 billion respectively. WTL was today`s volume leader with 23 million shares.
Arif Habib Limited said the day began in the green for the PSX though the battle was lost to the bears as the opening session closed in the red.
The second session resumed in the red and lost 257.63 points in the intraday.
The impeding IMF deal along with the political uncertainty kept the investors at bay as the session concluded in the negative zone. Volumes remained dry in the mainboard while the 3rd tier equity remained as the volume board leaders, according to Arif Habib.
Sectors contributing to the performance include technology and communication (-43.0pts), commercial banks (-23.3pts), power generation and distribution (-17.1pts), inv. banks / inv. cos. / securities cos. (-16.5pts) and automobile assembler (-16.4pts). Volumes increased from 116.5 million shares to 136.95 million shares.
The average traded value also increased by 32.0 percent to $11.8 million as against $8.9 million. Stocks that contributed significantly to the volumes are WTL, UNITY, TRG, PTL and WAVES.
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