Daily Times

The outgoing week witnessed its own share of turbulence at the local bourse as the KSE 100 index once again closed in red with a loss of 4.5% WoW.

This makes it a seven-week streak, and a cumulative loss of 14%. Volumes recovered from the lows of last week, increasing to 107mn shares (+46% WoW). Foreigners remained buyers this week as well with US$7.9mn recorded as net buying.

An equity analyst, Amreen Soorani, said unrest at the equity market was a result of anticipation of further interest rate increases and rupee devaluation, in addition to energy price hikes and removal of concessions after the IMF press release during the last weekend.

Concerns were reinforced as the rupee devalued by 5% at the inter-bank market during the week. Consequently, market participants are now expecting at least a 100bps hike to be announced in the Policy Rate scheduled for next Monday (20th May), she added.

On key updates, the Assets Declaration Scheme 2019 was also approved this week, while on a separate note, Pakistan’s team submitted its implementation report to the Asia-Pacific Joint Group (APG) on the recommendations of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF).

The semi-annual review of MSCI however remained a non-event for the KSE100 index. On a sector-wise front, almost all sectors across the board lost market cap this week where (1) Steel (-16% WoW), Oil & Gas Marketing Companies (-16% WoW) and Cements (-11% WoW) were among the worst performers. The Automobile Assembler sector declined by 6% WoW as car sales data for Apr-2019 was published, reporting a decline of 24% YoY. However, Oil & Gas Exploration sector was among the few sectors that closed in green, on the back of optimism regarding Kekra-I well development resuming once again. During the week, Fauji Foods, (-25% WoW), Kohat Cement (KOHC, -22% WoW) and International Industries (INIL, -23% WoW) were among the worst performers; while Pakistan Petroleum (PPL, +6% WoW) witnessed highest returns this week.