KARACHI: The bearish trend entered new week as the Pakistan Stock Exchange Monday closed bearish, with the benchmark KSE-100 Index shedding 356 points to close at 42,911.
The benchmark showed some negative activity during the first few minutes of trading before adopting a positive momentum for the rest of the session. It hit a day’s low of 42804.50 points a few minutes after trading commenced, whereas it hit a day’s high of 43490.69 points near the end of the session.
Volumes edged up as 167 million shares worth Rs7.17 billion changed hands. Of the 343 traded scrips, 125 advanced, 206 declined and 12 remained unchanged.
Earlier, the stocks started week on positive note and added 62 points to reach 43329 level in early trading. The Pakistan Stock Exchange lost 43,000 level after shedding 268 points to drop to 42999 level till midday.
Last week, the equities remained volatile reports on FATF’s watch list and the Supreme Court’s judgment of toppling former prime minister Nawaz Sharif as president of PML-N party.
On the sector front; Commercial Banks and Cement cumulatively took away 250 points from the index. Foreigners were net sellers of $2.8million worth of shares during the week vs. selling of $16million during last week. On the local front, Insurance were net buyers of $14.5million whereas Individuals were net sellers of $11.2 million.
During the week, the country’s total liquid foreign exchange reserves fell by $139.4 million during last week owing to external debt payments. According to State Bank of Pakistan (SBP), the country’s forex reserves declined to $18.829 billion as on February 16, 2018 compared to $18.968 billion on February 9, 2018.
Current account deficit surged 48 percent YoY to $9.2billion in 7MFY18 after imports accelerated while crude prices surged, as per data released by State Bank of Pakistan (SBP).
