Daily Times

Pakistan equities traded in pressure Tuesday to close at 42,637 points level after taking cue from global and regional indices which are mostly down by over 1 percent. The KSE-100 index closed negative shedding 204.59 points.

Nishat Group Companies underwent additional pressure after news-flow (over weekend) on potential National Accountability Bureau (NAB) enquires against Nishat Chunian Power (NCPL) and Nishat Power Limited (NPL), both witnessed 5 percent decline.Pakistan State Oil (PSO) gained 4.58 percent following the announcement of its Fiscal Year 2017-18 (FY18) results while earnings were below expected, the market cheered 20 percent Bonus Issuance. Most of the trading activity was witnessed in retail names as Pak Elektron (PAEL), Wateen Telecom Limited (WTL), Lotte Chemical (LOTCHEM), Engro Polymer Chemical Limited (EPCL) and Unity Foods (UNITY) collectively traded over 51 million shares.

On the economic front, the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) released provisional trade numbers today for the month of July 2018 as exports for July 2018, were measured at $ 1.65 billion, a 1.17 percent year-on-year (YoY) increase. Imports for the same period were measured at $ 4.84 billion, a 0.6 percent YoY increase. Both imports and exports fell on MoM basis by 15.03 percent & 12.77 percent respectively during July 2018, while the US Dollar appreciated by 4.75 percent against the Pakistani Rupee in the same period. “We expect range bound market in the near term and investors likely to track flows from FII going forward as benchmark Index is facing resistance at 43,000 levels”, said Murtaza Jafar, an analyst at Elixir Securities. Traded volumes declined by 34 percent day-on-day (DoD) to 163 million shares while value traded too fell to Rs 8.1 billion.

Published in Daily Times, August 14^th 2018.