KARACHI: The dimmed chances for releasing the first tranche by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) executive board even early next month kept market sentiments depressed, pushing the benchmark index below 78,000 despite a rating upgrade in a volatile session on Wednesday.

Ahsan Mehanti of Arif Habib Corporation said the stock market closed lower on a weak economic outlook amid reports of uncertainty over $9 billion loan rollovers.

The midsession support witnessed by Moody’s credit rating upgrade to Caa2, raising Pakistan’s outlook to positive, did help the index partially trim early losses.

He said reports of Pakistan’s inclusion on the IMF board meeting agenda for the $7bn Extended Fund Facility could be postponed owing to unresolved gross financing gap and trade and industry protests over higher taxes and surging power tariff also contributed to the bearish close.

According to Topline Securities, the equities extending the overnight downturn commenced the session negatively as the index witnessed bearish sentiment initially. However, it saw some positive momentum in the later half after Moody’s rating upgrade.

During the day, Bank Al-Habib, Highnoon Laboratories, Packages Ltd, MCB Bank and Hub Power shaved off 104 points from the index. Conversely, Mari Petroleum, Engro Corporation and Fauji Fertiliser had some buying interest, adding 162 points.

As a result, the KSE-100 index hit an intraday high of 78,334.61 and a low of 77,990.35. However, it settled at 77,992.79 after shedding 91.45 points or 0.12pc day-on-day.

The trading volume was up 7.52pc to 636.02 million shares. The traded value, however, dipped 4.96pc to Rs16.26bn day-on-day.

Stocks contributing significantly to the traded volume included Kohinoor Spinning Mills Ltd (124.73m shares), Fauji Foods (39.28m shares), Yousaf Weaving (34.90m shares), Agha Steel (28.10m shares), Dewan Motors (23.95m shares).

The shares registering the most significant increases in their prices in absolute terms were Mari Petroleum (Rs88.16), Hallmark Company Ltd (Rs62.56), Khyber Textile (Rs51.94), Philip Morris (Rs35.23) and Al-Ghazi Tractors (Rs17.60).

The companies registering significant decreases in their share prices in absolute terms were Unilever Foods (Rs160.00), Nestle Pakistan (Rs46.40), Leiner Pak Gelatine (Rs28.90), Highnoon Laboratories (Rs27.36) and Packages Ltd (Rs24.06).

Foreign investors turned net buyers as they picked shares worth $0.47m.

Published in Dawn, August 29th, 2024