KARACHI: The Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) started new week on bearish note after shedding 89 points to reach 40755 level in early trading on Monday.
Last week, lackluster activity prevailed at the bourse again with KSE-100 index plummeting by 1.4 percent WoW to close at 40,844. Most of the euphoria witnessed during the last week (strong mutual fund buying) fizzled out as political headwinds took charge of affairs.
Keeping weak outlook into consideration, mutual funds and banks turned into net sellers of $16 million and $4 million worth of equities, respectively. That said almost all index heavyweights such as Oil & Gas marketing (-4.5 percent WoW), Oil & Gas exploration (-1.9 percent WoW), Fertilisers (-2.7 percent WoW) and Banks (-1.4 percent WoW) witnessed selling pressure during the week.
The range bound activity during the week was primarily dominated by small and mid-cap stocks, where Azgard Nine Ltd and TRG Pakistan Ltd were volume drivers. Engro also topped the volume charts as a result of negative sentiment arising out of its downgrade from MSCI EM Pakistan and later value buying. Overall, ADTO reduced by 7 percent to clock-in at 106 million shares while ADTV clocked-in at $51 million (down 15 percent WoW). Encouragingly, foreigners remained net buyers with a net inflow of $1.13 million during the week. Conversely, mutual funds sold heavily, draining 16 million from the market while insurance ($8.1m) and companies ($5.0m) remained net buyers.
