KARACHI: The bears tightened their grip on the stock market amid concerns about the impact of the stringent conditions attached to the IMF bailout. As a result, the benchmark index came under renewed selling pressure, closing the weekend session in the negative territory on Friday.

Ahsan Mehanti of Arif Habib Corporation attributed the downturn to investor concerns about IMF’s harsh conditions to end energy subsidies, monitoring government spending, and structural tax reforms that would fuel inflation in FY25.

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He added that the mounting political tensions, dela­ys in the privatisation of state-owned enter­prises, and pressure amid future contract rollover con­tributed to the bearish close.

Topline Securities Ltd said the index remained under pressure due to the offloading of shares by foreign corporates over the last couple of sessions, keeping the investor sentiment in check.

However, a significant positive contribution to the index came from Fauji Fertiliser, Hub Power, Engro Fertiliser, Fauji Fertiliser Bin Qasim and Lucky Cement, cumulatively contributed 220 points. Conversely, Mari Petroleum, United Bank, MCB Bank, National Bank and Engro Corporation lost 279 points.

The KSE-100 index fluctuated between the day’s high of 81.842.75 and low of 81,183.50. However, it settled at 81,292.13 points after losing another 365.83 points or 0.45pc day-on-day.

The trading volume declined 19.96pc to 339.32 million shares, and the traded value plunged 27.04pc to Rs12.89bn day-on-day.

Stocks contributing significantly to the traded volume included K-Electric (50.66m shares), WorldCall Telecom (32.40m shares), The Hub Power Company (16.26m shares), Secure Logistics (14.15m shares) and Kohinoor Spinning Mills (13.42m shares).

The shares registering the most significant increases in their prices in absolute terms were Hallmark Company (Rs102.70), Rafhan Maize Products Company Ltd (Rs92.46), Unilever Foods (Rs80.00), Ghandhara Ind (Rs30.82) and Nestle Pakistan (Rs22.93).

The companies that suffered major losses in their share prices in absolute terms were Sapphire Textile Mills Ltd (Rs40.23), Premium Textile (Rs29.00), Shield Corpora­tion (Rs20.91), Hafiz Ltd (Rs19.29) and Pakistan Services (Rs16.95).

Foreign investors remained net sellers as they offloaded shares worth $1.96m.

Published in Dawn, September 28th, 2024