Stocks down on economic recovery doubts

Stocks on Friday slipped in narrow trade, as economic outlook continued to remain a cause of concern amid no letup in virus worries, traders said.

Pakistan Stock Exchange's (PSX) benchmark KSE-100 Share Index lost 100.92 points or 0.21 percent to 47,169.84 points testing a day high of 47,320.31 points and a bottom of 47,123.38 points.

According to Ahsan Mehanti at Arif Habib Corp, stocks closed lower amid thin trade on weak economic outlook amid global Covid concerns. “Slump in rupee-dollar parity and concerns for outcome of likely PSX downgrade to MSCI frontier status next month did the damage,” Mehanti said.

He added that early session support was witnessed on finance minister’s assurance over receipt of $2.8 billion unconditional IMF (International Monetary Fund) assistance next week and strong financial payouts in the oil and banking scrips.

Minister for Finance Shaukat Tarin on Thursday said Pakistan was due to receive $2.77 billion from the IMF on August 23, 2021. Tarin at a press conference said the funds would directly be sent to the State Bank of Pakistan, which would help further improve the country’s foreign exchange reserves, and thus have a positive impact on the economy.

Trailing the benchmark, KSE-30 Shares Index also shed 74.32 points or 0.39 percent to close the day at 18,855.25 points.

Trading volumes declined by 17 million shares to 213.36 million against 230.17 million shares, while trading value went down to Rs9.27 billion from Rs11.54 billion. Market capital reduced to Rs8.257 trillion from Rs8.273 trillion. Out of 452 actives, 168 improved, 257 fell, while 27 ended neutral.

Nabeel Haroon, at Topline Securities, said range-bound activity was observed at the exchange.

He said PSEL, TRG, GHGL, FCEPL, and MTL cumulatively contributed 65 points to the index, whereas SYS, LUCK, MLCF, OGDC and MCB dented the index by 91 points.

Pakistan Services was the best gainer of the day, rising Rs65.87 to end at Rs953/share, followed by Siemens Pakistan that soared by Rs47.97 to end at Rs687.59 per share.

Gatron Industries was the most battered stock, falling Rs35.50 to finish at Rs448 per share, followed by Archroma Pakistan, down Rs19.67 to end at Rs571.39 per share.

On the results side, MLCF announced its consolidated 4QFY21 result announcement in which it posted EPS (earnings per share) of Rs.0.89, which was largely in line with street estimates.

ASTL in the steel sector also announced a 4QFY21 EPS of Rs1.5.

A report by KASB Research said the ASTL result was ahead of the market consensus of Rs1.2 earnings per share. The deviation was mainly on account of better steel off-take.

Stocks that recorded significant turnover included TPL Properties, Ghani Global Holdings, WorldCall Telecom, TPL Corp Ltd, TRG Pak Ltd, Telecard Limited, Byco Petroleum, Silk Bank Ltd, Citi Pharma Ltd, and Treet Corp.

TPL Properties was the volume leader with 24.51 million shares. The scrip gained Rs2.94 to end at Rs42.16 per share. It was followed by Ghani Global that posted a trade to 23.91 million shares. The scrip closed higher by 97 paisas to close at Rs44.39 per share.

Share turnover in the future contracts decreased to 56.19 million shares from 65.10 million shares traded in the previous session.