KARACHI: The Pakistan Stock Exchange Tuesday started new week after long weakened on bearish note and shed huge 692 points to drop to 43609 level in early trading.
Last week, the benchmark KSE 100-share edged lower by 0.6 percent on week-on-week basis to close at 44,301 points as exhaustion of bulls kept the market in check. Activity too declined with average traded value declining by 22 percent WoW to $90m per day, where key net sellers were foreigners of $13m and local banks of $12m.
The stock market opened on Monday to a surprise 25bps hike in policy rate to 6.0 percent by the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP), where the central bank believed the increase was necessitated, as monthly inflation is likely to touch the 6.0 percent mark towards the end of FY18.
The pharmaceutical sector (+4.7 percent WoW) topped the charts, whereas oil & gas exploration (-0.2 percent WoW) and cements (-2.2 percent WoW) were key laggards. However, the cement sector showed some late strength on expectations of strong Jan-2018 off-take numbers (+29 percent YoY). The week also witnessed announcements by Mega Conglomerate (1) to buy shares of Hub Power (HUBC, -0.94 percent WoW) at Rs106.5 from Dawood Hercules (DAWH, +5.07 percent WoW) and Cyan Limited (CYAN, +6.56 percent WoW) and (2) showing intention to acquire substantial shareholding of Dewan Cement (DCL, +24.60 percent WoW).
Other key highlights of the week were (1) Hascol Petroleum (HASCOL, +0.52 percent WoW) agreeing to pay $9.5m to settle row and (2) Supreme Court banning four brands of packaged milk including Nurpur of Fauji Foods (FFL, +2.98 percent WoW). All this resulted in benchmark KSE-100 index closing lower and activity too declining.
On the sector front, pharmas gained 5 percent followed by refinery and glass & ceramics gaining 4 percent each. On the other hand, textile & weaving dropped 6 percent, followed by tobacco declining by 5 ercent and cements sliding by 2 percent in outgoing week.
Foreigners were net sellers of $12.6m worth of shares during the week vs buying of $12.4m during the last week. On the local front, banks were net sellers of $12.1m whereas individuals were net buyers of $6.3m.
