KARACHI: The stock market stayed under pressure on Wednesday because of investors’ concerns over the harsh tax measures expected in the upcoming budget along with mounting inflation following fuel price hikes.
According to Arif Habib Ltd, the benchmark index suffered a volatile session with lacklustre trading volumes registered in main-board stocks. Shares in the banking sector in particular took a beating on the back of reports that the government may impose a higher super tax and increase the rates of other taxes in the budget.
JS Global stated that trading remained range-bound for yet another day owing to a lack of positive triggers. It advised investors to take exposure to dividend-yielding stocks through a buy-on-dip strategy.
The KSE-100 index settled at 41,553.16 points, down 15.25 points or 0.04 per cent from a day ago.
The trading volume decreased 4pc to 151.1 million shares while the traded value went up 6.2pc to $22.3m on a day-on-day basis.
Stocks contributing significantly to the traded volume included Unity Foods Ltd (11.82m shares), D.G. Khan Cement Ltd (9.62m shares), Oilboy Energy Ltd (8.25m shares), TPL Properties Ltd (8m shares) and Pakistan Refinery Ltd (6.35m shares).
Sectors that took away the highest number of points from the benchmark index included commercial banking (62.88 points), fertiliser (18.24 points), textile composite (15.67 points), automobile assembling (14.23 points) and insurance (8.87 points).
Shares contributing most negatively to the index included Habib Bank Ltd (21.95 points), Fauji Fertiliser Company Ltd (17.07 points), Bank Alfalah Ltd (15.49 points), Meezan Bank Ltd (11.05 points) and Indus Motor Company Ltd (9.9 points).
Stocks that contributed most positively to the index included Lucky Cement Ltd (47.77 points), the Hub Power Company Ltd (27.16 points), Pakistan Oilfields Ltd (15.21 points), TRG Pakistan Ltd (13.06 points) and Engro Fertilisers Ltd (9.07 points).
Foreign investors were net sellers as they offloaded shares worth $3.99m.
Published in Dawn, June 9th, 2022
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