Pakistan stocks witness lacklustre session amid profit-booking

KARACHI: Another lacklustre session was witnessed at the local bourse on Friday, wherein trading opened on a positive note and gained 200 points but eventually, due to the lack of positive triggers, the investors chose to book profit ahead of the rollover week.

Ahsan Mehanti at Arif Habib Corporation said that the stocks closed lower, amid thin trade on investors’ concerns over economic uncertainty.

“Higher trade deficits, reports of $55 billion external debt repayments, $7.1 billion current account deficit and uncertainty over the mini-budget with new taxes ahead of the resumption of the IMF [International Monetary Fund] programme played a catalytic role in the negative close.”

The Pakistan Stock Exchange KSE-100 shares Index shed 0.34 per cent, or 148.52 points, to close at 44,118.39 points. The KSE-30 shares Index lost 0.42 per cent, or 73.37 points, to close at 17,353.47 points.

As many as 353 scrips were active, of which 136 advanced, 194 declined and 23 remained unchanged.

The ready market volumes stood at 223.37 million shares, compared with the turnover of 240.42 million shares in the last trading session.

An analyst at Arif Habib Limited said the battle between the bulls and bears was conquered by the bears in the last trading hour.

“[The] market opened with a positive momentum, as the SBP conducted another OMO for 63 days. Optimistic approach faded away due to [the] concerns of investors towards higher inflation and dip in [the] total liquid foreign exchange reserves held by the SBP mainly due to external debt repayment.”

The activity continued to remain sideways, as the market witnessed hefty volumes in the third tier stocks. On the flip-side, in the second session institutional buyers started fetching value stocks due to attractive multiples.

The companies, which reflected the highest gains included Nestle Pakistan, up Rs85 to close at Rs5670/share; and Sanofi Aventis, up Rs52.94 to close at Rs758.82/share.

The companies that reflected the most losses included Colgate Palmolive, down Rs186.01 to close at Rs2313.99/share; and Sapphire Textile, down Rs65.5 to close at Rs820/share.

The highest volumes were witnessed in Unity Foods with a turnover of 33.5 million shares. The scrip gained 64 paisas to close at Rs1.79/share; followed by Hum Network with a turnover of 24.16 million shares. It shed 20 paisas to close at Rs6.66/share. TRG Pakistan remained the third with a turnover of 20.58 million shares. It shed Rs5.95 to finish at Rs118.4/share.