KARACHI: The stock market came under rene­wed selling pressure on Monday, partially reversing the overnight gains amid growing political and economic uncertainty.

Ahsan Mehanti of Arif Habib Corporation said stocks tumbled on a weak economic outlook.

He said rupee instability, political uncertainty, delays in privatising state-owned enterprises, and concerns about the unsettled debt of Chinese IPPs were the key depressants.

Topline Securities Ltd said Mari Petroleum was the standout performer of the day. It continued its upw­ard momentum after two consecutive upper caps in the previous sessions following the company’s anno­uncement of an 800pc bo­nus. In terms of value traded, the company led the market with nearly Rs4.3bn.

Throughout the session, Mari Petroleum, Hub Power, Service Industries, Pakistan Oilfield and MCB Bank collectively contributed 259 points to the index. Conversely, profit-taking in Meezan Bank, Systems Ltd and Lucky Cement lost 176 points.

As a result, the benchmark index hit an intraday high of 78,886.46 points and a low of 77,940.53. However, it settled at 77,980.29 after losing 589.30 points or 0.75pc on a day-on-day basis.

The overall trading volume slightly eased by 1.25pc to 415.17 million sha­res. The traded value, how­e­ver, rose 7.34pc to Rs22.17bn on a day-on-day basis.

Stocks contributing significantly to the traded volume included Yousaf Wea­ving (38.06m shares), Wor­l­dCall Telecom (19.21m shares), Kohinoor Spin­ning (13.34m shares), Hascol Petroleum (13.03m shares) and Telecard Ltd (12.43m shares).

The shares registering the most significant incre­ases in their share prices in absolute terms were Mari Petroleum (Rs122.16), Ser­v­ice Indus­tries (Rs48.95), PIA Hold­ing Ltd[B] (Rs45.21), Hall­mark Company (Rs40.47) and Khyber Textile (Rs34.75).

The companies registering significant decreases in their share prices in absolute terms were Raf­han Maize (Rs125.59), Nestle Pakistan (Rs98.00), Hoechst Pak (Rs91.28), Sazgar Engineering Works Ltd (Rs70.58) and Exide Pakistan (Rs67.53).

Foreign investors rema­ined net buyers as they purchased shares worth $0.85m.

Published in Dawn, August 13th, 2024