Pakistan stocks continue volatility on lockdown fears

KARACHI: The Pakistan stocks witnessed another volatile session where the index fell below a psychological barrier of 47,000 points during the intraday, as the provincial government has been mulling strict measures, including imposition of a complete lockdown, as Covid positivity ratio has reached 30 per cent in the business hub of the country, dealers said.

An analyst at Arif Habib Limited said the market lost another 363 points during the session on Thursday; however, it covered a lot of ground and ended the session flattish.

“[The] banks, E&P, cement, power and technology sectors saw selling pressure on the concerns of lockdown, as well as rollover positions; whereby, [the] investors preferred selling in [the] ready market and bought futures.”

The Pakistan Stock Exchange KSE-100 shares index shed 0.01 per cent, or 5.7 points, to close at 47,312.33 points. The KSE-30 shares index shed 0.06 per cent, or 10.86 points, to close at 18,963.44 points.

As many as 405 scrips were active, of which 145 advanced, 243 declined and 17 remained unchanged. The ready market volumes stood at 376.44 million shares, compared with the turnover of 365.77 million shares in the last trading session.

Lucky Cement saw abrupt movement where the stock price remained depressed the entire session, moved up in the half closing hour and saw a major selloff in the closing minute to end at the lowest price of the session.

Ahsan Mehanti at Arif Habib Corp said that the stocks closed lower on investors’ concerns over the economic impact of the Covid outbreak and weak global equities.

“Midsession support was witnessed on surging global crude oil prices, strong financial results in [the] fertiliser sector and strong earnings outlook for auto, oil and cement sectors. However, [the] rupee instability and surging trade deficit dampened [the] sentiments.”

Going forward, analysts expect the market to remain volatile and recommend investors to adopt selling on strength strategy in the ongoing rollover week.

The companies, which reflected the highest gains included Rafhan Maize, up Rs50 to close at Rs10,000/share; and Sapphire Fiber, up Rs39.99 to close at Rs899.99/share.

The companies that reflected the most losses included Gatron Industries, down Rs42.22 to close at Rs520.78/share; and Blessed Textile, down Rs38.55 to end at Rs475.45/share.

The highest volumes were witnessed in WorldCall Telecom with a turnover of 50.15 million shares. The scrip shed 15 paisas to close at Rs3.42/share; followed by Byco Petroleum with the turnover of 47.10 million shares. It gained 9 paisas to close at Rs9.99/share. Unity Foods Limited was the third with a turnover of 16.14 million shares. It shed 28 paisas to finish at Rs40.30.

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