The Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) remained bearish for the second straight day on Friday, with the benchmark KSE-100 Index shedding 599.03 points (-1.31 percent) to close at 45,749.15 points.
The market opened on a positive note and gained around 40 points during the first 10 minutes of the session, but later, it remained in the red territory throughout both parts of the session. The KSE-100 Index moved in a range of 691.9 points, showing an intraday high of 46,409.11 points and a low of 45,717.21 points, the last day closing point. Among other indices, the KSE All Share Index shed 323.64 points (-1.03 percent) to close at 31,225.51 points, while All Share Islamic Index shed 246.61 points (-1.10 percent) to close at 22,158.98 points.
A total of 369 companies traded shares in the stock exchange, out of them shares of 99 closed up, shares of 252 closed down while shares of 18 companies remained unchanged. Out of 94 traded companies in the KSE-100 Index, 14 closed up, 78 closed down and two remained unchanged.
The overall market volumes decreased to 192.5 million shares. Total volumes traded for the KSE-100 Index were 81.98 million shares. The number of total trades decreased to 88,330, while the value traded remained Rs7.66 billion.
Among scrips, UNITY topped the volumes with 14.89 million shares, followed by GGL (14.54 million) and BYCO (9.29 million). Stocks that contributed significantly to the volumes include UNITY, GGL, BYCO, HUMNL and TELE, which formed around 29 percent of total volumes.
The companies, which reflected the highest gains included Unilever Foods, up Rs1,080 to close at Rs19,479 per share; and Sapphire Textile, up Rs70 to close at Rs1,300/share. The companies that reflected the most losses included Colgate Palmolive, down Rs137.49 to close at Rs2,431.01/share; and Ismail Industries, down Rs37.85 to close at Rs467.15/share.
According to experts, the bourse tumbled after MSCI reclassified Pakistan to the Frontier Markets from the Emerging Markets with a lower-than-expected weightage. They said that the stocks closed lower in the post-earnings season on global equities sell-off and slump in the global crude oil prices. They said the rupee recorded a fall against US dollar, uncertainty over Pak-IMF resolve for resumption of IMF programme and concerns over lower weightage in the MSCI FM index played a catalytic role in the bearish close.
They said that the KSE-100 index extended its decline that can be attributed to MSCI announcement, where it notified that Pakistan’s weight in MSCI Frontier Markets will be 1.25 percent, compared with the earlier simulated weight of 1.9 percent. It further notified that three Pakistani securities will be added to the MSCI Frontier Markets Index, compared with the earlier simulated four constituents where OGDC was the fourth constituent.
Going forward, analysts expect the market to move both ways, amid persisting pressure on the currency and uncertainty on the political front.
