Stocks plunge as Moody’s downgrade Pakistan’s outlook

KARACHI: The equity stocks nosedived on Friday after Moody’s downgraded Pakistan’s outlook to negative on fiscal risks amid delays in the International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailout and concerns over global equity selloff.

Ahsan Mehanti at Arif Habib Corp said that the dismal data of $43.33 billion trade deficit for the period of July-May during fiscal year 2022, falling foreign exchange reserves and surging government Treasury bond yields played a catalytic role in the bearish close.

The Pakistan Stock Exchange KSE-100 shares Index shed 2.19 per cent, or 923.03 points, to close at 41,314.88 points. The KSE-30 shares Index shed 2.33 per cent, or 374.61 points, to close at 15,733.75 points.

An analyst at Arif Habib Limited said that the benchmark KSE-100 Index witnessed yet another bloodbath session due to monetary tightening and inflationary concerns.

“The market opened in the negative zone and remained under pressure throughout the day as investors opted for profit selling over uncertain economic scenarios.

The volumes remained dull across the board, on the contrary, hefty volumes were observed in the third tier stocks,” he added.

As many as 335 scrips were active of which 61 advanced, 262 declined and 12 remained unchanged.

The ready market volumes stood at 225.39 million shares, compared with the turnover of 157 million shares in the last trading session.

The companies which reflected the highest gains included Sapphire Textile up Rs69.50 to close at Rs 1,189.50/share, Mehmood Textile up Rs63 to close at Rs933/share.

The companies which reflected the most losses included Unilever Foods down Rs100 to close at Rs24,900/share, and Rafhan Maize down Rs75 to close at Rs 9,955/share.

The highest volumes were witnessed in K-Electric Ltd with a turnover of 30.06 million shares. The scrip shed 16 paisas to close at Rs2.47/share, followed by Pak Refinery with a turnover of 21.76 million shares. It shed 58 paisas to close at Rs17.37/share.

Cnergyico PK remained the third with a turnover of 20.26 million shares. It shed 24 paisas to finish at Rs5.16/share.