KARACHI: The stock market to remain range bound next week. Investors are expected to have a cautious stance keeping in view monetary policy announcement on July 16, 2019, analysts at Arif Habib Limited said.
The analysts said that the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) may increase a 100 basis points in view of aggravating inflationary pressure.
The benchmark KSE-100 index of Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) was commenced on a negative note during the current week.
The lackluster attitude prevailed amid bleak near-term macro-economic outlook following release of IMF staff report. Additionally, apprehensions with regards to issue of Sukuk bonds for circular debt resolution kept the momentum suppressed.
With SBP announcing the date for monetary policy on the last day of the week, the investor sentiment further deteriorated. The local bourse closed at 33,672, shedding off 518 points.
Sector-wise negative contributions came from i) Commercial Banks (81 points), ii) Power Generation & Distribution (77 points), iii) Oil & Gas Marketing Companies (53 points), iv) Automobile Assembler (53 points), and v) Cement (50 points).
Scrip-wise negative contributions came from HUBC (53 points), PSO (37 points), BAHL (29 points), DGKC (24 points) and INDU (21 points). On the other hand, positive scrip-wise contributions came from FFC (34 points), DAWH (16 points), and EFERT (5 points).
Foreign buying was witnessed this week clocking-in at USD 5.91 million compared to a net buy of USD 5.92 million last week. Buying was witnessed in cement (USD 3.0 million) and power generation & Distribution (USD 2.3 million). On the domestic front, major selling was reported by Companies (USD 7.6 million) and Mutual Funds (USD 5.3 million).
Average Volumes settled at 51 million shares (down by 41 percent WoW) while value traded clocked-in at USD 13 million (down by 36 percent WoW).
