BRIndex100 loses 54.74 points

RECORDER REVIEW

KARACHI: Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) witnessed bearish trend during the outgoing week ended October 08, 2021 due to selling pressure on investors concerns over rising global commodity prices, higher inflation and alarming import bill.

BRIndex100 lost 54.74 points on week-on-week basis to close at 4,652.36 points. Average daily trading volumes stood at 236.403 million shares.

BRIndex30 decreased by 529.03 points to close at 22,060.95 with average daily turnover of 154.884 million shares.

KSE-100 index declined by 394.46 points on week-on-week basis and closed at 44,477.24 points. Trading activities also remained low as average daily volumes on ready counter decreased by 25.2 percent to 265.36 million shares as compared to previous week’s average of 354.90 million shares. Average daily traded value declined by 20.7 percent to Rs 10.20 billion. Total market capitalization declined by Rs 22 billion to Rs 7.786 trillion.

“Reeling from the previous week’s dejected performance the KSE-100 index continued its negative trajectory across the week, closing at 44,477 points”, an analyst at AKD Securities said. In the outgoing week, the index cumulatively lost 395 points or 0.9 percent where an upsurge in global commodity prices (coal hit $238/mt and Brent hit $83.1/bbl during the week), widening trade deficit, and higher inflation (9 percent in September’21 versus 8.4 percent in August’21), played over market sentiments. In addition to this, the market sentiment reflected concerns over the upcoming IMF review and political uncertainties.

Cement sector was among the major laggards for the week, losing 5.6 percent as coal prices continue to trade near 10 year high amid increased demand for power generation in developed economies.

Top performers of the market included MARI (up 14.6 percent), SEARL (up 7.8 percent), COLG (up 6.4 percent), UBL (up 5.0 percent) and MTL (up 3.8 percent). Meanwhile laggards included NATF (down 18.9 percent), PIOC (down 11.8 percent), GADT (down 10.8 percent), FFBL (down 10.7 percent) and CHCC (down 10.5 percent).

Top volume leaders included WTL (133 million shares), TELE (127.3 million shares), UNITY (55.6 million shares), GGL (50.8 million shares) and BYCO (50.7 million shares).

Flow wise, Individuals remained the major buyers with (net buy of $7.13 million) followed by Mutual Funds (net buy of $3.61 million) while Companies stood on the other side with (net sell of $16.05 million) followed by foreigners (net sell of $3.7 million).

An analyst at JS Global Capital said in addition to Pandora Papers, an alarming import bill, higher than expected inflation reading and rising global commodity prices, concerns over the upcoming IMF review continued to decrease investor activity.

Mounting coal prices led Cement sector to underperform the benchmark this week, delays in allocating incentives as per new Refinery Policy caused Refineries to show lagged performance and rising costs and depreciating PKR continued to pressure Automobile stocks.

On the other hand, higher global oil prices led to gains in the Oil and Gas Exploration sector. The State Bank of Pakistan held a T-Bill auction this week in which cut off rates increased by 21bps over anticipation of further monetary tightening in months to come. This also led to outperformance of Banking sector this week. On stock-wise performance, expectations of gas discovery ranked MARI among the best performers.