Equities sink amid bad news in the neighborhood

Karachi, Augst 10, 2019: Unwarranted selling and fragile sentiments witnessed at the Pakistan Stock Exchange during then last week correlated to India’s inexcusable revocation of Kashmir’s special status.

According to Arif Habib Research, once again brought to the forefront, political rivalry between the two nuclear-armed South Asian neighbours.

With peace in the region tested, investors felt temperatures in the domestic geopolitical environment spike, translating to an overflow of negativity. The market closed at 29,429 points, shedding 2,237 points or 7.1 percent (WoW).

Sector-wise negative contributions were led by Commercial Banks (844 points), Oil & Gas Exploration Companies (529 points), Power Generation & Distribution (221 points), Fertilizer (182 points), and OMC’s (121 points). Scrip-wise negative contributions came from UBL (216 points), OGDC (195 points), HBL (187 points), PPL (176 points) and HUBC (163 points).

Foreign selling was witnessed this week clocking-in at USD$ 0.9 million compared to a net buy of USD$ 3.4 million last week. Selling was witnessed in Commercial Banks (USD$ 4.5 million) and Oil & Gas Marketing Companies (USD$ 0.2 million). On the domestic front, major buying was reported by Individuals (USD$ 10.9 million) and Banks / DFIs USD$ 3.5 million.

Average Volumes settled at 72 million shares (up by 26 percent WoW) while average value traded clocked-in at USD$ 19 million (up by 44 percent WoW).

Other major news:

Remaining on FATF grey list to impact capital inflows: IMF, Economy likely to grow below 4 percent: ADB, Pakistani dollar bonds fall, 30 million penalty: Furnace oil, coal-based power generation minimized, Foreign exchange: SBP reserves fall 0.49 percent to USD$ 7.73 billion.

With the index on a hiatus for Eid break next week, analysts at Arif Habib believed that investors will find time to cool off and breathe a sigh of relief. During this time, they have advised that market participants to reassess the index level and the recent blood bath, whereby value buying opportunities have opened up.

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