KARACHI: Volatility persisted on the stock market as bears tightened their grip, forcing the benchmark index to post losses for the third straight day on Tuesday amid wild fluctuations triggered by uncertainty.

Ahsan Mehanti of Arif Habib Corporation stated that the market was trending lower as the earnings season neared closing. Reports of the IMF board meeting scheduled for Aug 28 missing the agenda for $7 billion loan approval and uncertainty over sourcing the $3-$5bn gap fuelled concerns about the country’s capacity to meet external debt financing requirements.

“Political uncertainty, surging imports, uncertainty over IMF approval on taxes, power subsidies played a catalyst role in bearish close,” he added.

Topline Securities Ltd said an inexplicable selling spree in the latter half of the session threw the benchmark index below 77,500, where value-hunters rescued the market by doing some cherry-picking.

Today’s confounded market behaviour can be ascribed to the absence of any positive trigger. Consequently, banks, fertiliser, power and technology sectors contributed negatively, where Bank Al-Habib Ltd, Fauji Fertiliser, Hub Power, MCB Bank and Systems Ltd lost 186 points. On the contrary, United Bank Ltd, NBP and Millat Tractor cumulatively added 166 points due to some buying interest observed in them.

As a result, the benchmark index hit an intraday high of 77,930.34 points and a low of 77,460.40. However, it settled at 77,745.52 after losing another 84.82 points or 0.11pc on a day-on-day basis.

The trading volume shrank 19.29pc to 380.71 million shares. The traded value also plunged 33.56pc to Rs11.23bn on a day-on-day basis.

Stocks contributing significantly to the traded volume included Kohinoor Spinning Mills Ltd (101.85m shares), Yousuf Weaving (35.80m shares), Flying Cement (17.469m shares), WorldCall Telecom (13.46m shares) and Air Link Communication (13.19m shares).

The shares registering the most significant incre­ases in their share prices in absolute terms were PIA Holding Company [B] (Rs81.10), Unilever Pakistan Food (Rs76.40), Nestle Pakistan (Rs56.77), Pakistan Engineering Company Ltd (Rs44.47) and Indus Motor (Rs23.87).

The companies registering significant decreases in their share prices in absolute terms were Mari Petroleum (Rs25.64), Atlas Honda Ltd (Rs19.82), Sazgar Engineering Works Ltd (Rs19.24), Data Agro Ltd (Rs14.47) and Exide Pakistan Ltd (Rs12.89).

Foreign investors turned net buyers as they bought shares worth $0.15m.

Published in Dawn, August 21st, 2024