Pakistan stocks down 411.61 points amid selling pressure

KARACHI: The Pakistan equity market witnessed a massive selling pressure as geo-political tension arose between Pakistan and other foreign countries, which led the index to close below the psychological barrier of 46,000 points, dealers said on Wednesday.

Ahsan Mehanti at Arif Habib Corporation said that the stocks fell across-the-board on investors’ concerns over the economic impact of hike in key policy rate by 25bps.

“[The] rising current account deficit and [the] circular debt, hike in [the] power tariff and inflationary impact, amid weak rupee parity played a catalytic role in the bearish close.”

The Pakistan Stock Exchange KSE-100 shares index shed 0.89 per cent, or 411.61 points, to close at 45,597.24 points. The KSE-30 shares index shed 0.82 per cent, or 149.92 points, to close at 18,028.99 points.

As many as 525 scrips were active, of which 99 advanced, 413 declined and 13 remained unchanged. The ready market volumes stood at 583.73 million shares, compared with the turnover of 325.88 million shares in the last trading session.

An analyst at Arif Habib Limited said the market continued its downward trend. “Leveraged positions of retail investors played havoc on the market, which received margin calls after continuous declines witnessed in the index for the last couple of sessions.”

“Besides, negative news flow relating to [the] MCB Bank employee having implication in money laundering case, also dented the sentiment. Technology and refinery sectors got hurt the most; however, selling pressure was also observed in cement, steel, fertiliser, banks and E&P sectors.”

An analyst at Pearl Securities said the Fed is going to announce the monetary policy tonight, while the recent Evergrande issue also led investors to shy away from the market; therefore, the pressure continued at the bourse, resulting in massive sell-off.

“Going forward, we expect the market to remain in doldrums till the upcoming IMF meeting, which is scheduled in the first week of October.”

The companies, which reflected the highest gains included Gatron Industries, up Rs34.99 to close at Rs515/share; and Pak Engineering, up Rs21.99 to close at Rs324/share.

The companies that reflected the most losses included Rafhan Maize, down Rs424.99 to close at Rs10,575/share; and Nestle Pakistan, down Rs110 to close at Rs5,800/share.

The highest volumes were witnessed in WorldCall Telecom with a turnover of 91.05 million shares. The scrip shed 13 paisas to close at Rs2.98/share; followed by Azgard Nine with a turnover of 36.19 million shares. It shed Rs1.61 to close at Rs22.53/share. Hum Network remained the third with a turnover of 34.07 million shares. It shed 44 paisas to finish at Rs6.25.

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