RECORDER REPORT
KARACHI: After starting on a strong positive note Thursday, Pakistan Stock Exchange came under selling pressure after mid-session due to rising tensions on Pak-India border, analysts said.
Initially, the benchmark KSE-100 index, for the first time in its history, hit 40,861.80 points intra-day high, up 506.78 points. However, cross-border conflict between Pakistan and India invited selling after mid-session that pushed the market into negative territory and at the end of the session, the KSE-100 index closed at 40,295.52, down 59.50 points.
Trading activity improved tremendously due to healthy trading in second- and third-tier stocks and the daily trading volume increased by 63 percent to 712.161 million shares as compared to 435.061 million shares traded Wednesday. Total market capitalization decreased by Rs 13 billion to stand at Rs 8.160 trillion. Out of the total 460 shares, 303 closed in negative, 137 in positive while the value of 20 stocks remained unchanged.
Bank of Punjab was the volume leader with 59.681 million shares however, it lost Rs 0.44 to close at Rs 13.14 followed by Pace (Pak) Limited that increased by Re 1.00 to close at Rs 11.93 with 56.261 million shares. TRG Pak Limited lost Rs 0.46 to close at Rs 43.71 with 33.779 million shares.
Wyeth Pak and Hinopak Motor were the top gainers with Rs 104.73 and Rs 62.67, respectively to close at Rs 2199.48 and Rs 1371.82 while Rafhan Maize and Nestle Pakistan were the top losers with Rs 100.00 each to close at Rs 7000.00 and Rs 7500.00, respectively.
Ahsan Mehanti at Arif Habib Corporation said pressure remained in stocks amid investor fears on escalation in Pak-India tensions. Oil stocks outperformed the index after surge in crude prices on likely OPEC production cut. Fear gripped the sentiment after plunge in Indian stocks on claims over surgical strikes at LoC ignoring bullish global equities.
An analyst at Global Securities said the session was highly volatile with the market hovering within a wide band of 717 points. Positive sentiments prevailed during first half as investors rejoiced OPEC’s decision to cap oil production to 32.5-33.0 million bbls/day, a move which caused international oil prices to surge by 7 percent and cross the $49/bbl level. Rising international oil prices caused most of Pakistan’s oil and gas exploration companies to trade at or near their upper-circuits during intra-day trading. Prevailing sentiments spilled over to the broader market, allowing the KSE-100 to gain over 500 points and peak at 40,861 points. Later during the day, news reports emerged of potential attacks at the Pakistan-Indian border, highlighting the rising tensions between India and Pakistan. The market took notice of this incident, causing the bourse to come under immediate pressure and wipe out all intra-day gains.
An analyst at Topline Securities said that the cross-border conflict between Pakistan and India affected sentiment of the local market participants. Resultantly, local bourse registered a decline of 59 points or 0.15 percent, to close at 40,295 levels after reaching an intraday high of 40,861.
