RECORDER REVIEW
KARACHI: Pakistan Stock Exchange witnessed declining trend during the outgoing week ended on May 11, 2018 due to selling in various sectors.
BRIndex100 lost 101.06 points on week-on-week basis to close at 4,651.75 points with average daily trading volumes of 134.112 million shares.
BRIndex30 decreased by 678.92 points to close at 23,338.56 points with average daily turnover of 76.752 million shares.
Pakistan’s benchmark KSE-100 declined by 942.12 points on week-on-week basis and closed at 43,594.79 points. Trading activities slightly improved as average daily volumes increased by 0.9 percent to 167.37 million shares as compared to previous week’s average of 165.92 million shares. Average daily trading value increased by 3.2 percent to Rs 6.56 billion.
The foreign investors remained net sellers of shares worth $4.1 million during this week. Total market capitalization declined by Rs 207 billion to Rs 8.973 trillion.
An analyst at AKD Securities said political fever once again pushed investors to opt the risk off approach, as Accountability Court’s deadline to decide on the corruption references against Sharif family drew closer. Losing 741 points in the first three trading sessions, KSE-100 index marginally recovered in the fourth session following the SC’s decision to extend AC’s deadline by a month (till June 09, 2018). However, unable to sustain the recovering trend, market ended the outgoing week on a negative note, losing 942 points to close at 43,595 points.
Price performance on the main-board remained dismal, with key losers during the week in AKD Universe include KEL (down 5.71 percent), CHCC (down 5.54 percent), ASTL (down 5.22 percent), PIOC (down 5.09 percent) and HUBC (down 4.82 percent), while major gainers include PPL (up 2.94 percent), POL (up 2.67 percent) and EFERT (up 1.65 percent).
An analyst at JS Global Capital said that the benchmark KSE-100 index continued its downward trajectory for the second week in a row, declining by another 2.1 percent on week-on-week basis. Challenges to the national budget FY19 also remained a cause of concern amongst the market participants, keeping fresh investments at bay.
In terms of sectors, oil and gas exploration remained the only heavyweight sector which closed in the green zone as US President Donald Trump scrapped Iran Nuclear deal, sending international oil prices above $77/bbl level and estimates upgrade by major investment banks around the world. Other than this, almost all key sectors such as fertilizers (down 0.6 percent), oil and gas marketing (down 2.3 percent), automobiles (down 3.0 percent), cements (down 3.7 percent mainly on account of increasing international coal prices) and banks (down 3.2 percent) dragged the overall index.
