Market watch: KSE-100 hits 11-month low, falls below 41,000

Benchmark index loses 431.34 points to settle at 40,958.65

KARACHI: Investors, both institutional and retail, continued to remain bearish with the stock market enduring another fall after a one-day respite on the opening session of the week.

After lacklustre trading during the early part of the day, things took a turn for the worse with notable index names losing value due to massive institutional selling coupled with a lack of buyers. The KSE-100 Index finished below 41,000 for the first time in 2017.

Cherry-picking by institutional and high net worth individual investors rescued several notable stocks, including Engro and UBL, but was not enough to reverse the overall negative trend.

At close on Thursday, the benchmark KSE 100-share Index recorded a decrease of 431.34 points or 1.04% to end at 40,958.65 points.

According to Elixir Securities, Pakistan equities dropped further with benchmark KSE-100 Index falling to a new 11-month low due to institutional sell-off.



“Market opened sideways and struggled for direction in early hours as notable index names saw range-bound trading with lacklustre activity,” the report stated.

Later, notable blue chips across major sectors were dragged down due to institutional selling amid dearth of aggressive bids on system while retail investors were also left struggling given losses in small and mid-caps.

Habib Bank (HBL PA -4.6%) had another red day; closing below Rs153/share, its lowest level in 20 months and churning over eight million shares, highest in four months.

Stocks that stood strong and weathered the general downtrend included Engro Corp (ENGRO PA +2.5%), United Bank (UBL PA +1.1%) and Pakistan Petroleum (PPL PA +0.9%) on the back of strong institutional buying.

“[We] expect market to remain dicey and trade volatile on Friday with institutional activity, primarily from foreign investors, likely to be the only saviour in days ahead,” Elixir added.



JS Global analyst Maaz Mulla said the market remained range bound during the initial hour of the trading session, however, bears came to dominate during the second half taking the KSE-100 index to a low of 704 points, but closing at 40,959.

“Banking and cement sector led the decline as the top laggards for the day included HBL (-4.62%), LUCK (-0.90%), BAHL (-2.61%) and NBP (-3.39%).

“Oil and gas marketing companies' sector also closed negative compared to last trading session and PSO (-0.86%), SHEL (-1.51%) and SNGP (-4.73%) from the aforementioned sector lost value,” Mulla remarked.

However, the bear market did not impact UBL (+1.08%) and MCB (+0.39%) as they gained to close in the green zone. Oil exploration and production stocks also gained where POL (+0.34%), PPL (+0.88%) and OGDC (+0.10%) closed positive as Ogra revised wellhead gas prices up to 11% for 47 fields.

Overall, trading volumes fell slightly to 147.3 million shares compared with Wednesday’s tally of 147.8 million.



Shares of 379 companies were traded. At the end of the day, 68 stocks closed higher, 302 declined while nine remained unchanged. The value of shares traded during the day was Rs8.5 billion.

TRG Pakistan was the volume leader with 15.8 million shares, gaining Rs1.33 to close at Rs38.57. It was followed by Azgard Nine with 10.9 million shares, losing Rs0.05 to close at Rs13.56 and Habib Bank with 8.2 million shares, losing Rs7.41 to close at Rs152.94.

Foreign institutional investors were net buyers of Rs101 million during the trading session, according to data compiled by the National Clearing Company of Pakistan Limited.