KARACHI: Stocks fell by 72.12 points to close at 31,197.98 on Friday. Investors’ sentiments were held hostage to worries over the outcome of PTI protest on Sunday.
It was exacerbated by the plunge in commodity prices in the international market, which pulled down the stocks in heavyweight oil & gas sector.
On Friday, OGDCL lost Rs11.08; PPL Rs20.87 and PSO Rs11.24, all of which made major contribution to the index fall.
FIPI outflow amounted to $0.85 million on Friday.
Over the week, the market witnessed net outflow at $3.6m, against inflow of $4.8m the previous week.
Samar Iqbal, AVP Equity Sales at Topline Securities stated that investors’ interest in IPPs, fertiliser and cements stocks supported benchmark index on Friday.
Analyst Ahsan Mehanti at Arif Habib Corp said that stocks closed bearish after major fall in international oil prices to four-year low weakening earnings outlook in blue chip oil stocks and fear of inventory losses.
Over the week, the benchmark index declined by 297 points or 0.97 per cent.
Analysts at a major brokerage house said that investor concerns over the government-PTI showdown on Nov 30 and fall in oil prices pushed behind major positive development of issuance of dollar-dominated sukuk bonds (raising $1 billion from international debt markets).
News flow impacting the broader market during the week included the widening of current account deficit to $1.7bn for 4MFY15, up 31pc YoY; T-bill yields easing off by 51bps in the latest auction; Opec’s decision not to cut petroleum production and Ogra forwarding a summary to the government, recommending reduction in prices of almost all petroleum products for Dec 2014.
Published in Dawn, November 29th, 2014