ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) Thursday registered bearish trend as KSE 100 index closed at 40,481 points as compared to 40,574 points on the last working day with the negative change of 92.87 points (0.23%).
A total of 83,552,650 shares were traded compared to the trade 109,559,610 shares during the previous day, whereas the value of shares traded during the day stood at Rs3.97 billion as compared to Rs5.78 billion during last trading day.
Total 326 companies transacted shares in the Stock Market today, out of which 125 recorded gain and 181 sustained losses whereas the share price of 20 companies remained unchanged.
The three top traded companies were, HASCOL Petroleum Limited with a volume of 8,775,000 shares and price per share of Rs22.47, Bank of Punjab with a volume of 8,659,500 and price per share of Rs13.24 and DGK Cement with a volume of 8,146,000 and price per share of Rs68.29.
Saudi Pak Leasing Company Limited recorded the maximum increase in percentage of 16.67 percent to close at Rs0.7 while First Elite Capital Mudarba was runner up with the increase of Rs0.34 (16.11%) per share, closing at Rs2.45.
Yesterday, the market closed at 40,574.52 after gathering 399 points. Yesterday’s rally came following confirmed reports from sources that Pakistan will not be put in the black list, but will remain in the grey list till October 2020 i.e. the country is given more time to implement effectively the global illicit financing watchdog’s 27 recommendations about the anti-money laundering and combating financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) mechanism.
In previous weeks, the market kept struggling for its sustainability when confusion and uncertainty surrounded investors until late Friday when the IMF, in its concluding remarks affirmed that Pakistan had been successful in completing the “structural benchmarks” as well as in meeting “all end-December performance criteria” which had been set for the implementation of $6 billion Extended Fund Facility programme.
Previously, other persisting factors in the decline of stock market were the FATF concerns and large suspension of imports from China, which had been hammering the stock market, following the outbreak of COVID-19. Besides, strife political disagreements between coalition parties in the government until some of them were settled in meetings with the ruling PTI.
Since mid-January, investors have been adopting extremely cautious behaviour after more headlines cover mounting deaths due to coronavirus taking full hold, a plunge in global crude oil prices, unchanged main policy rate by the State Bank of Pakistan at 13.25 percent for the next two months and political uncertainty in the country.
The SBP in the latest monetary policy statement kept the interest rate unaltered and pushed selling in the leveraged sectors such as cement and steel. Concerns over higher than expected reading of inflationary pressures and political uncertainty sparked by coalition partners of the government also kept investors away from the market.
