Daily Times

KARACHI: Pakistan equities witnessed a bloodbath on Tuesday as the benchmark KSE-100 index nosedived by massive 1,389 points amid political developments couple with foreign outflows, crude price fall in international market. The benchmark index close at 43,899 points.

The equity market started on a weaker note and struggled for direction in early hour with stocks seeing range bound trading, and thereafter, most index names across major sectors witnessed hammering, predominately from institutional investors, analysts at Elixir Securities said.

Amidst no serious buyers on screen, small and mid cap plays also followed suit and closed in the red territory.

On political front Tahir-ul-Qadri’s today’s sit-in also fueled feelings of uncertainty. The other development came from the booted out prime minister Nawaz Sharif who filed three separate petitions in the Supreme Court to review and stay further implementation of the Panama papers verdict that resulted in his disqualification. The five-member Supreme Court bench that took the unanimous July 28 decision is expected to hear the review petition.

Local institutional selling and weak external account numbers and fear of depreciation also remain a matter of concern for investors which played important role in the downslide of the market.

The top 5 contributors to index decline included OGDC (-3.9%), ENGRO (-4.3%), HBL (-2.4%), MCB (-4.3%) and HUBC (-3.6%), contributing 322 points to index decline.

ISL, one of the volume leaders, announced financial results reporting EPS of Rs7/share, up 158%. The result was accompanied by final cash dividend Rs1/share. The results were in line with estimates, however, the stock declined by 4.2%.

Traded volumes were up 68% to 191 million shares whereas traded value was up 51% to Rs9.1bn/$86 million.

Maple Leaf Cement announced right shares issuance after market close. The news was largely anticipated by the market as the company had already announced that it will be finalizing sources of financing in the Board Meeting scheduled for Tuesday.

On Tuesday 12.4 million shares of Bank of Punjab were traded at the bourse to become top volume leader followed by K-Electric with 12.2 million shares, Azgard Nine 9.8 million, Engro Polymer 9.3 million and Lotte Chemical 8.4 million.

On KSE100 Index, just two stocks defied the bearish trend and traded positive, 13 remained unchanged while 85 names closed in red out of which 37 closed at their respective lower price limits or fell by more than 4%.

Analysts expect index to find some stable ground near current levels, however, any major bounce back in days ahead is not in sight as domestic politics remains a dampener and will keep any sharp upside in check.

Published in Daily Times, August 16^th 2017.