KARACHI: Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) turned bearish after the arrest of former prime minister Imran Khan on Tuesday, with the benchmark KSE-100 Index shedding 455.68 points (-1.09 percent) to close at 41,373.81 points.
The market opened on a negative note and shed around 350 points during the first hour trading. However, the market recovered most of its intraday loss and touched the level of 41,800 points when the news of Imran Khan’s arrest let bears rule the market amid excessive selling. The selling spree continued for the next one hour; however, the index managed to recoup some loss near the end of the session.
Besides Khan’s arrest, the market remained dull as Moody’s Investor Service has warned that Pakistan could default without an International Monetary Fund bailout as its financing options beyond June are uncertain. “We consider that Pakistan will meet its external payments for the remainder of this fiscal year ending in June,” according to Moody’s.
Moreover, issues of rupee’s depreciation against the US dollar, high inflation, depleting foreign exchange reserves, domestic political turbulence and economic uncertainty pushed the market lower.
The KSE-100 Index moved in a range of 552.62 points, showing an intraday high of 41,830.35 and a low of 41,277.73 points. Among other indices, the KSE All Share Index shed 252.25 points (-0.92 percent) to close at 27,353.87 points, while KMI All Share Islamic Index shed 189.80 points (-0.96 percent) to close at 19,736.46 points.
A total of 350 companies traded shares in the stock exchange as compared to 365 a day earlier. Out of traded companies, shares of 82 closed up, shares of 255 closed down while shares of 13 companies remained unchanged. A total of 91 companies traded shares in the KSE-100 Index, out of which 16 closed up, 73 closed down and two remained unchanged.
The overall market volumes remained 203.05 million against 179.05 million shares a session earlier. Total volumes traded for the KSE-100 Index remained 104.57 million as compared to 68.75 million shares a session earlier.
The number of total trades increased by 603 to 96,219, while the value traded increased by Rs1.09 billion to Rs5.85 billion as compared to the previous session. Overall market capitalisation decreased by Rs57.77 billion.
Among scrips, NBP topped the volumes with 10.61 million shares, followed by KEL (8.27 million) and FFBL (6.55 million). Stocks that contributed significantly to the volumes included NB P, KEL, FFBL, SNGP and OGDC, which formed around 19 percent of total volumes.
In terms of rupee, RMPL remained the top gainer and witnessed an increase of Rs39.75 (+0.48 percent) per share, closing at Rs8,249.75. The runner-up remained LCI, the share price of which climbed up by Rs9.63 (+1.63 percent) to Rs600. MARI remained the top loser in terms of rupee and witnessed a decrease of Rs9.58 (-0.61 percent) per share, closing at Rs1,550.74, followed by MTL, the share price of which fell by Rs9.13 (-1.78 percent) to close at Rs505.07 per share.
The sectors taking the index towards south were commercial banks (109 points), oil & gas exploration companies (78 points), fertilizer (56 points), investment banks/ investment companies/ securities companies (37 points) and technology & communication (34 points). The index was deprived of points mostly by HBL (60 points), DAWH (36 points), OGDC (33 points), ENGRO (32 points) and PPL (30 points).
The sectors taking the index towards north were synthetic & rayon (2 points), and modarabas and real estate investment trust (one point each). The most points added to the index were by UBL (25 points), LCI (4 points), HMB and GLAXO (3 points each) and PIOC (2 points).
