Daily Times

Pakistan Stock Exchange breached 29,000-mark during the early trading hours, triggering a sixth ‘market halt’ in the last nine sessions, but benchmark KSE-100 Index recovered almost all of its losses as well as witnessed some buying activity.

The benchmark KSE-100 Index lost 1,963.61 points to record its intraday low at 28,452.44. However, as trading resumed after a 45-halt, the index turned positive and recovered all losses to mark its intraday high at 30,515.62 (+99.57 points). Keeping most of the recovered points intact, it ended lower by 286.22 points at 30,129.83.Major stocks recovered their losses after heavy buying from banks and insurance companies. Insurance companies were the net buyers in the session, buying equities worth $5.1 million while Banks bought equities worth $2.6 million. The early plummet was led by heavy selling from foreign investors, selling equities worth $5.4 million followed by Mutual Funds with total selling worth $2.6 million.

The overall market volumes inflated from 186.65 million in the previous session to 307.78 million. K-Electric Limited led the volume chart, followed by Unity Foods Limited and The Bank of Punjab, exchanging 22.14 million, 19.28 million and 18.63 million shares, respectively.

Fertilizer sector revered the most in the intraday trading session by 215.13 points followed by Banking by 114.68 points. Among the companies Fauji Fertiliser Company contributed the most points to the index adding 91 points followed by ENGRO with 81 points, Muslim commercial Bank with 66 points, Bank Al Habib Limited with 52 points.

On the other hand sectors that weighed down the index include cement with 179.42 points, power generation & distribution with 103.73 points and oil & gas marketing with 55.42 points. Among companies the most points taken off the index was by Hub Power Company Limited which stripped the index of 95 points followed by Lucky Cement Limited with 85 points, United Bank Limited with 65 points, NESTLE with 50 points and DG Khan Cement with 26 points.

Meanwhile, Foreign exchange reserves held by the State Bank of Pakistan decreased by $110 million to $12,679.6 million during the week ending March 13, 2020. This decline in SBP reserves is attributed to repayments related to external government debt, Hajj and other official payments during the week.

Net foreign reserves held by commercial banks also decreased, from $6,114.7 million in the week ending March 3 to $6,063.4 million. The total liquid foreign reserves held by the country stood at 18,743 million.

Global Markets : Stocks Markets continued to bleed as fears over the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic continued to weigh on investor sentiment. Major markets in the region fell deep into negative territory, with South Korea’s Kospi leading losses as it dropped 8.39% to close at 1,457.64. The initial crash triggered a brief halt at Kospi trading. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index fell 2.61% by the afternoon, as of its final hour of trading. In Japan Nikkei 225slid 1.04% to close at 16,552.83, with index heavyweight and conglomerate Softbank Group plummeting 17.22%,its biggest one day fall.

Meanwhile, stock markets in Europe advanced amid massive stimulus package introduced by European ventral bank. ECB said it could buy up to $820 billion in government and private sector bonds as well as commercial paper by year end.Stock markets in U.S Stocks edged towards recovery, erasing steep losses from earlier in the day as sharp gains in big-tech shares led to a sharp turn around.