KARACHI: Unending ambiguity on the political front resulted in subdued activity in the stock market on Friday.

Arif Habib Ltd said the index of representative shares dropped in the second half of the trading session after the dollar pounded the local currency in the interbank market.

The depreciation further eroded investors’ confidence as the KSE-100 index hit an intraday low of 403.76 points, it said.

According to Topline Securities, the loss of rupee’s value against the greenback was on the back of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s statement that the bailout conditions by the International Monetary Fund were “beyond imagination”.

As a result, the KSE-100 index settled at 40,471.16 points, down 262.35 points or 0.64 per cent from the preceding session.

The overall trading volume decreased 15.3pc to 105.1 million shares. The traded value went down 33pc to $15.1m on a day-on-day basis.

Stocks contributing significantly to the traded volume included Hub Power Company Ltd (7.9m shares), Cnergyico PK Ltd (7.5m shares), Dewan Farooque Motors Ltd (5.7m shares), Gul Ahmed Textile Mills Ltd (4.9m shares) and WorldCall Telecom Ltd (4.8m shares).

Sectors contributing the most to the index performance were miscellaneous (-82.8 points), fertiliser (-61.6 points), technology and communication (-35.9 points), commercial banking (-35.6 points) and exploration and production (-29 points).

Companies registering the biggest increases in their share prices in absolute terms were Nestle Pakistan Ltd (Rs64), Bata Pakistan Ltd (Rs47), Khyber Tobacco Company Ltd (Rs23.90), JS Global Capital Ltd (Rs19.25) and Archroma Pakistan Ltd (Rs10.33).

The companies that recorded the biggest declines in their share prices in absolute terms were Pakistan Services Ltd (Rs145.35), Sapphire Textile Mills Ltd (Rs80), Premium Textile Mills Ltd (Rs40.44), Pakistan Tobacco Company Ltd (Rs38.11) and JDW Sugar Mills Ltd (Rs27.13).

Foreign investors were net buyers as they purchased shares worth $0.75m.

Published in Dawn, February 4th, 2023