KARACHI: The stock market continued its southward journey on Tuesday amid growing security concerns and economic uncertainty about securing the IMF board’s approval for the new loan programme.

Additionally, a nationwide strike call by the opposition for August 28 against the rising cost of electricity, gas, food, etc., supported by all the major chambers and traders associations across the country, depressed investor sentiments, triggering profit-taking and pushing the index further lower.

Ahsan Mehanti of Arif Habib Corporation said stocks closed under selling pressure amid institutional profit-taking on economic uncertainty.

He said reports of IMF board meetings agenda missing approvals on Pakistan’s 37-month $7 billion Extended Fund Facility, concerns over the falling rupee, surging industrial power tariff inviting closures, external financing gaps, and pending China IPPs dues restructuring played a catalyst role in bearish close.

Topline Securities Ltd said the benchmark KSE 100 index displayed notable volatility despite aggr­essive value-hunting by foreign investors, closing in red and extending overnight losses.

The decline was influenced by movements in the fertiliser, auto, and power sectors, with Fauji Fertil­i­ser Company, Engro Corp­oration, Millat Tractors, Hub Power and Engro Fer­tiliser cumulatively wiped off 281 points from the index.

As a result, the KSE-100 index hit an intraday high of 78,857.62 and a low of 78,077.83. However, it settled at 78,084.24 after losing 486.82 points or 0.62pc day-on-day.

The trading volume rose 15.45pc to 591.51 million shares. The traded value, however, fell 9.40pc to Rs17.11bn day-on-day.

Stocks contributing significantly to the traded volume included Kohinoor Spinning Mills Ltd (74.33m shares), WorldCall Tele­c­­om (47.38m shares), Snergyico PK (43.91m shares), Dewan Farooque (28.59m shares) and Secure Logistics (28.03m shares).

The shares registering the most significant increa­ses in their prices in absolute terms were Hallmark Company (Rs56.87), Mari Petroleum (Rs50.90), Unilever Foods (Rs45.00), Sazgar Engineering Works Ltd (Rs17.22) and Ghandhara Auto (Rs14.86).

The companies registering significant decreases in their share prices in absolute terms were PIA Hol­d­ing Ltd [B] (Rs73.63), Rafhan Maize (Rs46.99), Hoechst Pakistan (Rs30.74), Highnoon Laboratories (Rs26.58) and Nestle Pakistan (Rs23.60).

Foreign investors remained net buyers as they purchased shares worth $1.97m.

Published in Dawn, August 28th, 2024