Market watch: KSE-100 index struggles to find direction

Benchmark index falls 225.51 points to end at 48,555.30

KARACHI: The bourse tried to recover marginally on Friday from the previous session’s bloodbath, but panic-stricken investors failed to find a footing.

The benchmark KSE 100-share Index closed at 48,555.30, falling 0.46% or 225.51 points.

Elixir Securities’ analyst Ali Raza said the worst week for Pakistan equities since February 2009 came to an end as the benchmark index shed over 4,000 points or 7.8%, with Friday being the only day that saw late buying from value hunters.



“Friday’s session opened gap down and showed extreme volatility followed by recovery that helped to pare most of the morning losses that had pulled the index down 2.6% intra-day.”

Raza said reported panic selling in MSCI Emerging Markets’ stocks from institutions contributed the most to the decline as rumours were doing rounds of local smart money selling to meet possible redemptions while lack of clarity on the foreign institutional investors’ selling was also one of the primary concerns.

JS Global analyst Arhum Ghous said selling pressure was witnessed in the market during initial hours of trading as the index hit an intra-day low of -1,289 points.

“This pressure was on the back of likely redemptions in mutual funds. However, the market recovered to close at 48,555 (down 226 points).”

Foreign investors enter PSX, but quietly

Ghous said the recovery in the market came during latter hours as optimistic investors came in to build positions at attractive levels.

“Major laggards of the index were HBL (-1.61%), UBL (-1.57%), OGDC (-3.35%) and Engro (-0.28%) as they cumulatively contributed -169 points to the index.”

He added the cement sector ended lower (-0.3%) than previous day’s close. Mixed sentiments were witnessed in the steel sector where Aisha Steel Mills (+2.36%) and Dost Steel Limited (+0.75%) closed in the green zone whereas International Steels Limited (-3.10%) and International Industries Limited (-2.92%) closed in the red.



Overall, trading volumes fell to 221 million shares compared with Thursday’s tally of 403 million.

Shares of 356 companies were traded. At the end of the day, 155 stocks closed higher and 190 declined while 11 remained unchanged. The value of shares traded during the day was Rs15.7 billion.

Power Cement (right shares) was the volume leader with 16.2 million shares, gaining Rs0.04 to close at Rs2.09. It was followed by The Bank of Punjab with 12.5 million shares, gaining Rs0.14 to close at Rs1.29 and K-Electric Limited with 12 million shares, gaining Rs0.31 to close at Rs7.25.

Foreign institutional investors were net sellers of Rs2.46 billion during the trading session, according to data maintained by the National Clearing Company of Pakistan Limited.