There was a negative mood at the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) on Tuesday as the benchmark KSE-100 Index owes to political unpredictability.
Investors decided to sell their interests as a result of the deadlock in negotiations between the government and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The benchmark index fell 566.79 points or 1.36 percent to conclude at 41,150.16 at the end of the day.
The KSE-100 Index briefly opened in the green before starting to decline in the first hour and continuing to decline gradually all day.
There was widespread selling with index-heavy industries like the auto, cement, chemical, commercial banks, oil & gas exploration businesses and OMCs all trading in the negative. Experts ascribed the fall to the worsening macroeconomic data and the uncertainty surrounding the IMF program’s restart.
Due to dangerously low US dollar reserves the government has halted all imports except for necessities like food and medication until an IMF lifeline bailout is reached. In order to reduce circular debt in the gas industry it has also raised gas rates to collect Rs310 billion from consumers over the course of the next six months.
The volume on the all-share index decreased from 192.4 million on Monday to 187.5 million. Share prices increased from the previous session’s Rs7.7 billion to Rs7.9 billion. With 16.1 million shares Sui Southern Gas Company led the market in terms of volume followed by WorldCall Telecom with 14.9 million shares and Oil and Gas Development Company with 12.8 million shares.
On Tuesday shares of 316 different firms were traded while 79 of those shares saw increases, 208 saw decreases and 29 saw no change.
