KARACHI: The stock market extended the Friday losses as bulls beat a retreat. The KSE-100 index fell 168 points (0.40 per cent) and closed at 40,122 on Monday.

Stocks saw alternative bouts of buying and selling which kept the market volatile with the index touching intraday high and low by 115 and 351 points.

Investors were engaged in feverish discussions over the outcome of government’s renegotiations of power purchase agreements (PPA) with IPPs. Selling pressure on fertiliser and cement sectors on repayment of sizeable sum of Rs457 billion in Gas Infrastructure Develo­pment Cess as decided by the Supreme Court also kept the market dull as it was feared to have an adverse impact on the cash flows. On the positive side, the SBP announced remittances for July at $2.77bn which was 36pc higher year-on-year and 12pc month-on-month.

Oil and gas marketing companies (OMCs) were top performers as the resolution of GIDC issue gave hope of settling of circular debt in the short term. Also, investors switched over to OMCs stocks from the power and fertiliser. As a result, the Sui companies hit upper circuits, while Pakistan State Oil and Shell also traded near upper locks. In banking, Habib was plummeted further which went contrary to traders’ recommendations of a “buy” during weekend.

After several days of buying, foreigners again reverted to sell off with outflow at $1.12 million. The volume decreased 6pc over the previous session to 522.7m shares but traded value rose 16pc to $133.7m as top-tier stocks garnered interest.

Sectors that dragged the index hugely down included fertiliser, falling by 170 points, and power 125 points. O&GMCs, higher by 95 points, pharma 36 points, exploration and production 33 points and autos 22 points tried to make up for losses.

Scrip-wise, major losers were Hub Power, down 6.2pc, Engro Corporation, 5.3pc, Engro Fertiliser 5.6pc, Dawood Hercules 2.7pc Habib Bank 2pc, MCB 0.4pc and United Bank 0.4pc.

Published in Dawn, August 18th, 2020