KARACHI: Equities witnessed lacklustre activity on Tuesday on the backdrop of a further delay in the resumption of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) loan programme, said Topline Securities.

Investors opted to stay on the sidelines, resulting in a low trading volume. They became worried about the likely delay in the deal with the IMF after the media reported the finance minister’s statement on the issue.

The stock market opened on a positive note as the KSE-100 index gained 110 points in intraday trading. However, profit-taking kicked in afterwards and pulled down the benchmark index.

Ahsan Mehanti of Arif Habib Corporation said stocks closed on a bearish note because of a weak earnings outlook amid surging energy prices and a likely increase in the policy rate.

As a result, the KSE-100 index settled at 41,102.57 points, down 245.62 points or 0.59 per cent from a day ago.

The trading volume decreased 11.2pc to 76.9 million shares while the traded value went down 21.3pc to $11.6m on a day-on-day basis.

Stocks contributing significantly to the traded volume included Maple Leaf Cement Factory Ltd (6.53m shares), WorldCall Telecom Ltd (4.79m shares), Fauji Cement Company Ltd (4.43m shares), Pakistan Refinery Ltd (3.74m shares) and Lotte Chemical Pakistan Ltd (3.23m shares).

Sectors that took away the highest number of points from the benchmark index included commercial banking (80.54 points), cement (50.41 points), fertiliser (35.87 points), oil and gas exploration (17.49 points) and tobacco (15.6 points).

Shares contributing most negatively to the index included Habib Bank Ltd (26.75 points), Fauji Fertiliser Company Ltd (18.31 points), Bank Alfalah Ltd (17.68 points), Maple Leaf Cement Factory Ltd (17.28 points) and Engro Polymer and Chemical Ltd (16.25 points).

Stocks that contributed most positively to the index included Dawood Hercules Corporation Ltd (12.63 points), Systems Ltd (7.25 points), Indus Motor Company Ltd (5.35 points), Lotte Chemical Pakistan Ltd (5.14 points) and ICI Pakistan Ltd (4.81 points).

Foreign investors were net sellers as they offloaded shares worth $0.02m.

Published in Dawn, July 6th, 2022