Daily Times

Pakistan equities closed Wednesday sharply lower as uncertainty over domestic politics amid weak macros weighed heavily on the market.

The benchmark KSE-100 index shedding 1218 points closed at 40345.68 points level as against previous day closing of 41564.42 points.

Investors were mainly perturbed by the possibility of delay in General Elections as National Accountabiliy Bureau (NAB) Court is due to announce its verdict on Avenfield case against Ex-Premiere’s family on Friday; if Court’s verdict comes against them it could lead to imprisonment of ousted PM Nawaz Sharif.

Moreover, latest report by Credit Rating agency Fitch Ratings Inc. highlighting increased external risks for Pakistan also spooked investors. The declines in the market were broad based with nearly all sectors closing deep in red and benchmark KSE100 Index witnessing a sharp decline of nearly 3 percent or 1,219 points, most in almost eleven months.

Institutional investors primarily local asset managers reportedly turned aggressive sellers with major dent coming from Cements, Exploration and Production (E&Ps) , Financials, Steels etc.

An equity analyst at Elixir Securities Ali Raza expects market to remain under pressure today, however oversold conditions may lead to a possible bounce back on Friday once the Court verdict is announced. That said, medium-term outlook remains bleak as weak macros would keep a lid on the upside.

Traded volumes rose by 12.5 percent day-on-day (DoD) to 117.5 million shares as against 104.1 million shares traded in previous session, while value traded increased by 55 percent to Rs 5.7 billion as against Rs 3.7 billion. Volume leaders were Pak Elektron with 10.3 million turnover where Bank of Punjab with 6.9 million shares stood second and TRG Pak Ltd was third on the volume chart with 4.5 million shares traded.

In cement sector, almost all scrips closed in deep red as Bestway Cement, Attock Cement, DG Khan Cement, Cherat Cement, Fauji Cement and Dewan Cement shares went down.

Similarly, negative sentiment was seen in financials where all heavyweights including Habib Bank Limited (HBL), Bank of Punjab, Askari Bank Limited, MCB Bank Limited closed in the red, while only Bank of Islami resisted to pressure and closed in green.

Shares of 28 companies surged while shares of 300 companies went down amongst total 343 companies’ shares traded on Wednesday.

Published in Daily Times, July 5^th 2018.