KARACHI: The stock market witnessed a negative session on Monday as shares remained under pressure throughout the day because of investors’ concerns over political noise.

Arif Habib Ltd said investors opted to stay on the sidelines as they awaited the monetary policy announcement by the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP). Trading in the main-board stocks rema­ined dry whereas hefty volumes were observed in third-tier stocks.

In line with market expectations, the monetary policy committee of the SBP deci­ded to keep the benchmark interest rate unchanged at 15 per cent. The SBP said the country has secured additional financing of $4 billion from friendly nations over and above the external financing needs in 2022-23 — a fact that’s likely to ease the country’s balance-of-payment crisis.

JS Global said investors preferred to book profits amid a lack of positive triggers and rising political temperature.

As a result, the KSE-100 index settled at 42,826.66 points, down 443.99 points or 1.03pc from a day ago.

The trading volume decre­a­sed 36.4pc to 194.7 million shares while the traded value went down 16.6pc to $24.6m on a day-on-day basis.

Stocks contributing significantly to the traded volume included Pakistan Refinery Ltd (17.52m shares), K-Electric Ltd (14.68m shares), WorldCall Telecom Ltd (12.97m shares), Cnergyico PK Ltd (12.02m shares) and Unity Foods Ltd (10.32m shares).

Sectors contributing to the index performance included banking (-103.7 points), cement (-50.6 points), technology (-46.1 points), miscellaneous (-45.9 points) and exploration and production (-31.2 points).

Companies registering the biggest increase in their share prices in absolute terms were Rafhan Maize Products Company Ltd (Rs339.99), Sapphire Fibres Ltd (Rs79.19), Sapphire Textile Mills Ltd (Rs75.50), Indus Motor Company Ltd (Rs22.28) and Shield Corporation Ltd (Rs17.37).

Shares that declined the most in rupee terms were Pakistan Services Ltd (Rs85), Colgate-Palmolive Pakistan Ltd (Rs64.99), Sanofi-Aventis Pakistan Ltd (Rs60), Nestle Pakistan Ltd (Rs45) and Siemens Pakistan Engineering Ltd (Rs30).

Foreign investors were net sellers as they offloaded shares worth $0.48m.

Published in Dawn, August 23rd, 2022