Daily Times

The Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) turned bearish on Tuesday amid concerns over the upcoming mini-budget and ballooning current account deficit, with the benchmark KSE-100 Index shedding 162.88 points (-0.37 percent) to close at 44,177.07 points.

The market opened on a positive note and remained almost in the green territory for the first half; however, later the profit-taking gripped the market that continued for the last three hours of the session.

The KSE-100 Index moved in a range of 472.53 points, showing an intraday high of 44,594.66 points and a low of 44,122.13 points. Among other indices, the KSE All Share Index shed 58.75 points (-0.19 percent) to close at 30,213.32 points, while KMI All Share Islamic Index shed 91.8 points (-0.42 percent) to close at 21,815.02 points.

A total of 355 companies traded shares in the stock exchange, out of them shares of 149 closed up, shares of 174 closed down while shares of 32 companies remained unchanged. Out of 95 traded companies in the KSE-100 Index, 32 closed up, 60 closed down and three remained unchanged.

The overall market volumes decreased by 15.37 million to 223.08 million shares. Total volumes traded for the KSE-100 Index decreased by 20.13 million to 98.46 million shares. The number of total trades decreased by 1,491 to 109,876, while the value traded decreased by Rs0.71 billion to Rs8.68 billion. Overall market capitalisation decreased by Rs17.77 billion.

Among scrips, WTL topped the volumes with 21.71 million shares, followed by TRG (20.93 million) and CNERGY (18.72 million). Stocks that contributed significantly to the volumes included WTL, TRG, CNERGY, FFL, and TELE, which formed around 38 percent of total volumes.

The major sectors taking the index toward south were oil & gas exploration companies with 57 points, commercial banks with 51 points, fertilizer with 45 points, cement with 39 points, and oil & gas marketing companies with 14 points. The most points taken off the index were by PPL which stripped the index of 32 points followed by MEBL with 29 points, ENGRO with 25 points, PSO with 17 points, and HBL with 15 points.

The major sectors taking the index toward north were refinery with 13 points, power generation & distribution with 10 points, chemical with 7 points, investment banks/ investment companies/ securities companies with 7 points and food & personal care products with 6 points. The most points added to the index were by TRG which contributed 21 points followed by CNERGY with 14 points, MCB with 14 points, COLG with 11 points, and HUBC with 11 points.

According to experts, the investors’ confidence was dampened on the deteriorated current account deficit, which widened $1.9 billion in November 2021 from $1.76bn in October 2021. They said that the upcoming mini-budget, scheduled to be tabled this week, also weighed down on investors’ sentiments as subsidies announced in the budget for the fiscal year 2021-22 are going to be slashed. They said that volumes remained low as compared to the last trading session, as traders are cautious ahead of the presentation of the mini-budget. They expected range-bound trading due to this specific factor in the coming days.