KARACHI: The equity market fell by 171 points on Friday owing to reports of IMF deal and its repercussions on cost of doing business.
The benchmark KSE-100 index of Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) closed at 34,716 points as against 34,888 points showing a decline of 171 points.
Analysts at Arif Habib Limited said that the market was declined further today and traded below 35,000 level throughout the day.
During the session, the index lost a total of 240 points, but recovered slightly by end to show a net decline of 180 points (unadjusted). Cement, Banks, OMCs, Refinery and E&P contributed to selling pressure.
Overall volumes remained anemically low at 39 million shares, topped by KEL (4.8 million), followed by MLCF (2.7 million) and SEARL (1.9 million).
IMF’s bailout package was the talk of the town, where the sources from Finance Ministry (as relayed by TV channels) were hinting that the deal is just around the corner and the conditionalities of the deal are mainly to the detriment of cost of doing business.
Sectors contributing to the performance include E&P (-62 points), Fertilizer (-50 points), O&GMCs (-24 points), Cement (-24 points), Cement (-21 points), Food (+26 points).
Volumes declined significantly from 39.3 million shares as against 78.1 million shares (-50 percent DoD). Average traded value also declined by 53 percent to reach US$ 12.4 million as against US$ 26.3 million.
Stocks that contributed significantly to the volumes include KEL, MLCF, SEARL, LOTCHEM and UNITY, which formed 33 percent of total volumes.
Stocks that contributed positively include NESTLE (+34 points), MCB (+24 points), ABL (+15 points), MTL (+13 points) and THALL (+9 points). Stocks that contributed negatively include DAWH (-29 points), POL (-25 points), ENGRO (-19 points), PPL (-19 points) and SEARL (-15 points).
