Daily Times

KARACHI: Pakistan equities closed in the red amidst lackluster trading with the benchmark KSE-100 Index seeing an exchange of only 66 million shares. Market opened sideways and traded in positive territory for a brief period, however lack of immediate triggers prompted most institutional investors to stay on sidelines.

KSE-100 Index shed 293 points to close at 43,515 as comparing its previous day’s closing to 43,808 points.

Main-boards stocks in particular witnessed dreary activity and skidded lower on dull volumes with index heavy financials taking lead in declines. Oil and Gas Dev Company (OGDC PA -0.5%) was an exception as it fetched good institutional interest leading to over 3.6 million shares exchanging hands. Moreover, volumes chart remained dominated by small cap retail plays to the likes of ANL -5.3%, TRG PA +2.1%, KEL -0.5% and DFML PA +5%.

MSCI is due to announce quarterly-annual review today evening which, in Elixir’s view, will likely be a non-event for market tomorrow as we do not expect any additions or deletions from Pakistan constituents due to 50 percent buffer rule applied on quarterly rebalancing. As such, flows will remain crucial and continue to guide broader market direction, opined stocks experts.

Published in Daily Times, February 13^th 2018.