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Stocks falter on political uncertainty
KARACHI: After scaling an all-time high a day earlier supported by a successful SCO summit, the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) on Thursday came under renewed selling pressure stemming from mounting political tensions in the backdrop of the proposed 26th constitutional amendment, pulling the KSE 100 index below 86,000 on aggressive foreign selling.
Ahsan Mehanti of Arif Habib Corporation said stocks closed under pressure on political noise amid uncertainty over the outcome of judicial reforms and foreign outflows.
He noted that government actions on IPP payment and tariff issues, weak global crude oil prices and delays in privatising state-owned enterprises negatively impacted investor sentiment.
Topline Securities Ltd said the profit-taking was witnessed in the banking and E&P sectors as they lost value to weigh down on the index by 348 points.
The KSE 100 index hit an intraday high of 86,520.29 and a low of 85,539.20. However, the index settled at 85,585.43 after losing 620.23 points or 0.72pc day-on-day.
However, the trading volume rose 8.21pc to 513.28 million shares, but the traded value shrank 19.78pc to Rs21.61bn.
Stocks contributing significantly to the traded volume included Pakistan Refinery (57.82m shares), Fauji Foods (57.32m shares), The Searle Company (30.39m shares), Pak International Bulk Terminal (18.86m shares) and Pace Pakistan (17.53m shares).
The shares registering the most significant increases in their prices in absolute terms were Hallmark Company Ltd (Rs79.66), Rafhan Maize (Rs73.02), Siemens Pakistan (Rs63.22), Indus Motor (Rs42.85) and Premium Textile (Rs28.82).
The companies that suffered significant losses in their share prices in absolute terms were Nestle Pakistan (Rs100.00), Ismail Industries (Rs86.63), Service Industries (Rs32.40), Sapphire Textile (Rs16.33) and Pakistan Oilfields (Rs14.11).
Foreigners remained net sellers as they offloaded shares worth $4.81m, while banks and mutual funds turned net buyers, picking shares worth $3.65m and $1.58m, respectively.
Published in Dawn, October 18th, 2024
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