KARACHI: Shares opened on the higher side on Friday but a lack of triggers pushed the benchmark index down amid lacklustre sentiments.
Arif Habib Ltd attributed the negative sentiments to the ninth review of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) programme, which remains stalled.
Analyst Ahsan Mehanti said stocks closed lower after the finance minister’s statement that the delay in the IMF programme’s revival had something to do with geopolitics.
Investors’ concerns about the IMF bailout programme, Moody’s hints at the constrains with regard to the access to further loans without an IMF deal as well as falling yields of Pakistan’s dollar bonds pointing towards the possibility of a sovereign default played the role of a catalyst in the bearish close, he added.
As a result, the KSE-100 index settled at 41,301.30 points, down 67.87 points or 0.16 per cent from the preceding session.
The overall trading volume increased 4.2pc to 156 million shares. The traded value went up 3.8pc to $13m on a day-on-day basis.
Stocks contributing significantly to the traded volume included TPL Properties Ltd (24m
shares), K-Electric Ltd (17.8m shares), Hascol Petroleum Ltd (16.3m shares), WorldCall Telecom Ltd (13.3m shares) and
TPL Properties-July (8.6m shares).
Sectors contributing the most to the index performance were commercial banking (-46.8 points),
fertiliser (-35.9 points), power generation and distribution (-29.5 points), exploration and production (-19.6 points) and pharmaceuticals (-12.3 points).
Companies registering the biggest increases in their share prices in absolute terms were Rafhan Maize Products Company Ltd (Rs147.80), Colgate-Palmolive Pakistan Ltd (Rs84.44), Mehmood Textile Mills Ltd (Rs68.91), Khyber Tobacco Ltd (Rs19.85) and Siemens Pakistan Engineering Ltd (Rs17.11).
Companies that recorded the biggest declines in their share prices in absolute terms were Unilever Pakistan Foods Ltd (Rs680), Bhanero Textile Mills Ltd (Rs64.99), Bata Pakistan Ltd (Rs46.48), Premium Textile Mills Ltd (Rs35) and JDW Sugar Mills Ltd (Rs27.52).
Foreign investors were net sellers as they offloaded shares worth $0.52m.
Published in Dawn, June 17th, 2023
