KARACHI: The benchmark index of the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) yielded a dollar-based negative return of 21 per cent in the January-March quarter, making the national bourse the worst performer globally.

Topline Securities said on Friday the poor dollar-based return was on the back of a 20pc depreciation in the rupee’s value against the greenback, even though the KSE-100 index dropped just 1pc in the three-month period.

“Economic and political issues affected the local bourse in January-March… delays in the ninth review and the staff-level agreement (SLA) with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and increased political uncertainty continued impacting the market sentiment,” it said on Friday.

Citing data from financial services firm Bloomberg, it said Pakistan was followed by stock markets of Nairobi (-18pc), Turkey (-12pc) and Zambia (10pc) as the worst performer in terms of dollar-based returns during the last three-month period. Laos (48pc), Lebanon (33pc) and Sri Lanka (23pc) were the best-performing markets. In the first quarter of 2023, the average traded volume in cash and ready markets declined 25pc year-on-year and 21pc quarter-on-quarter to 173 million shares a day.

The average traded value deteriorated by 10pc on a yearly basis but rose 3pc on a quarterly basis to Rs6.5 billion a day in the same period. The average volumes in the futures market also declined 27pc year-on-year and 11pc quarter-on-quarter to 73m shares a day.

Foreign corporates remained key buyers in the market during the quarter under review, with net buying of $9m. This marked a reversal in the trend as foreign corporates have sold shares worth $2.5bn in last seven years (2016-2022) on a net basis.

On the local front, mutual funds were top sellers during the quarter with net selling of $46m, followed by insurance companies recording a net sale of $37m.

Published in Dawn, April 1st, 2023