Daily Times

KARACHI: The KSE-100 index pulled through investors’ nerve where the local bourse took a retraction from its continuous losses by gaining 606 points or 1.6 percent to finally settle at 38,505 levels.

Pakistani Rupee depreciated sharply by 7 percent to 133.6 against greenback to pave way for fresh IMF program. Within first hour of the trading session Index rallied by 1,100+ points in a bounce back rally with emerging clarity. However, profit taking saw more than half the returns wiped out, ensued by partial recovery. Index was mainly led by energy sector +3.6% which benefited from weaker Pakistani Rupee.

“We expect market to remain dull in near term due to investors’ concerns over economic imbalances and economic slowdown attributable to fiscal/monetary tightening. Investors would be keeping an eye on developments related to IMF program”, said Elixir Securities’ analyst Murtaza Jafar.

After weeks of procrastination, PTIs government finally decided to approach the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a bailout package just to hold off default on international debt obligations and bring back confidence among the investors.

Moreover, Oil & Gas Exploration Companies, Power and Financial sector emerged as top gainers as their collective gains amount to +490 points.

OGDC gaining 5 percent closed in the upper circuit where PPL gaining 4.49 percent and POL gaining 4.82 percent closed near the upper limit.

HUBC (+3.35%), KAPCO (+1.15%), HBL (+0.73%), MCB (+0.5%) and UBL (+0.04%) closed in the green zone. Tuesday’s major heavyweights namely PPL (+4.49%), HBL (0.73%), OGDC (+5%), ENGRO (+3.46%), MCB (+0.5%), POL (+4.82%), UBL (+0.04%) and FFC (+3.15%) cumulatively contributed +390 points.

Traded volumes slightly picked up by 21 percent day-on-day (DoD) to 225 million shares while value traded increased to US$73 million. Top volume stocks were Lotte Chemical and Bank of Punjab (BOP).

An equity analyst Danish Ladhani expects investor’s sentiment to remain choppy. Therefore, the KSE100 performance shall remain under pressure along with selling pressure from foreign investors.

Published in Daily Times, September 10^th 2018.