KARACHI: The Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) on Monday landed in the red after experiencing a volatile session, with the benchmark KSE-100 index plunging 33 points to close at 41,031.
The market touched a day’s low of 40,928 points during the first hour of the session; it hit a day’s high of 41,232 points in intraday trading.
“The market witnessed yet another day of lackluster activity, compounded due to technical problems,” read a JS Global report.
Volumes remained subdued, standing at 75mn shares, it said, adding that some of the major gainers for the day were SSGC (+3.00pc), DAWH (+2.92pc) and OGDC (+2.31pc), which cumulatively contributed 78 points to the benchmark index.
On the flip side, major laggards for the day were HBL (-1.74pc), PSO (-1.46pc) and UBL (-0.72pc); cumulatively taking 72 points from the index.
According to the report, positive sentiments buoyed the textile sector, as NML (+1.08pc) and NCL (+0.72pc) closed in the green on the back of the news that government has released Rs14bn for the implementation of Phase-I of the Prime Minister’s Export Incentives Package.
ATRL (-2.53pc), NRL (-2.04pc), PRL (-1.26pc) from the refinery sector, along with PSO (-1.46pc), closed negative after news this morning that the government has taken an abrupt decision not to run less-efficient power plants that run on furnace oil. The decision was taken due to prevailing smog in Punjab, the JS Global report read.
The E&P sector, however, closed higher than its previous day as crude oil prices edged higher in the global economy, marking a two-year high. PPL (+1.40pc) and OGDC (+2.31pc) were the major gainers of the mentioned sector.
Only 75.4 million shares, worth Rs4.5 billion, were traded on the broader market amidst the technical glitches. Of the 334 traded scrips, 98 gained in value, 221 declined and 15 remained unchanged.
Last week, developments on political scenario continued to haunt investors during the initial part of the week; however, recovery witnessed later helped the index to close only 0.1 percent WoW lower to previous week at 41,064. However, overall trading volumes continued to remain thin where average traded volumes (117m) declined by 13 percent WoW, while on the other hand traded value ($68m) improved by 3 percent WoW. Most of the value buying was done by institutional investors where insurance companies stood out as the net major buyers of $11 million worth of equities followed by mutual funds with net buying of $10 million.
Heavyweight oil & gas exploration companies (+8 percent WoW on recovering international crude oil prices) remained the major contributors in keeping index points drop in-check. Apart from E&Ps, almost all heavyweights such as cements (down 4 percent WoW on unclear future of prices), OMCs (down 1 percent WoW) and banks (down 1 percent WoW) continued to put pressure on the index. On the macroeconomic front, CPI inflation numbers for the month of October 2017 were also announced that clocked-in at 3.8 percent/0.7 percent YoY/MoM. Furthermore, S&P kept its ratings for Pakistan at ‘B’ in its recent credit report on Pakistan.
Consistent buying by value buyers sensing that the market has been pulled down to bargain levels supported by oil sustaining near $55/bbl (near 2-Year high) led to a strong rally which resultantly led the market to close flat at 41,064 points level WoW.
Stocks including OGDC (7 percent WoW), PPL (8 percent WoW), POL (6 percent WoW), MARI (9 percent WoW) and MCB (2 percent WoW), added 450 points to the index. On the other hand, UBL (-4 percent WoW), LUCK (-5 percent WoW), DAWH (-4 percent WoW), BAHL (-3 percent WoW) and SNGP (-4 percent WoW) detracted 231points from the index.
E&Ps sector was the top gainer over the week, up 8 percent; tobacco and cement sectors were down 4 percent each over the outgoing week. Insurance and Mutual Funds were the largest domestic buyers at $10.6 million and $10 million, respectively, while foreigners sold $30.7 million worth of shares during the week vs selling of $5.3 million last week. Selling was concentrated in banks ($6m), E&Ps ($4.7m), fertiliser ($4.4m), Power ($2.1m) and cement ($2m).
During the week, the government announced to considering sell Rs4.3 trillion of T-Bills & PIBs by January 2018. Out of the total, PIBs worth of Rs150 billion will be sold till January 2018 as per State Bank of Pakistan (SBP). Azgard Nine (ANL) reported its FY17 results with Loss of Rs0.29 per share vs LPS Rs1.79 last year. Revenues declined by 3 percent YoY. While gross margins have improved from 11 percent to 15 percent. According to SBP, the total liquid foreign reserves of the country stood at $19.8 billion ($19.9b last week) as of October 27, 2017. SBP’s reserves decreased by $95 million to $13.8 billion due to external debt servicing and other official payments.