Daily Times

KARACHI: Havoc condition was witnessed at the PSX on Monday, where market opened on a positive note making an intraday high of +194 points, but later succumbed to selling pressure as the index made an intraday low of -875 points to close at 39,666 level, down 1.5 percent or 605.23 points.

Major correction appeared in the market due to continuous foreign net outflows over the past week. Pakistani rupee dropped sharply against the US Dollar in the early trading hours in what appeared to be devaluation by the central bank.

The currency was trading at around Rs125/126 per dollar in morning after closing at Rs121.5 per dollar on Friday. Cement sector lead the decline where major heavyweights closed near their respective lower circuits.

DG Khan Cement shedding 4.89 percent, Fauji Cement Company Limited (FCCL) shedding 4.85 percent, Pioneer Cement (PIOC) shedding 4.95 percent and Chitral Cement (CHCC) shedding 4.70 percent were among the major losers.

Banking space closed lower than its previous day close; despite the State Bank of Pakistan’s raise its interest rate by a sharp 100 basis points to 7.5 per cent during the weekend.

Habib Bank Limited (HBL) with 2.32 percent decline, MCB Bank with 1.74 percent decline, National Bank of Pakistan (NBP) with 2.32 percent decline and Bank Alflah (BAHL) with 2.42 percent decline were the major loser of the mentioned sector.

Pakistan State Oil (PSO) losing 4.59 percent from the Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs) sector closed in the red zone on the back of the news that the Supreme Court ordered a complete audit of the Pakistan State Oil to verify the pricing structure for the last three years and determine fairness of price charged to the consumer.

An Equity analyst Maaz Mulla expects market to witness similar trend of volatility in the coming sessions due to overall ambiguities in the political environment.

Traded volumes increased by 18 percent to 147.4 million shares traded over 124.7 million shares traded in previous day’s session while value traded too increased by 6 percent to Rs 6.1 billion as against Rs 5.7 billion. Volume leaders were Bank of Punjab with 25.15 million shares traded, Fauji Cement with 10.46 million shares traded and Bank Islami with 9.10 million shares traded.

Published in Daily Times, July 17^th 2018.