Due to the existing political disturbance of extremely high level, the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) lost ground.
The delay in International Monetary FundÂ’s tranche of $1.1 billion and recent arrest of Imran Khan, the ex-Prime Minister added fuel to fire in the working of PSX. KSE-100 index remained in the red for most of the time during the week. The stock sell-off persisted on Wednesday as well in the backdrop of political situation.
After three sessions, investorsÂ’ confidence recovered on Thursday with the hope that IMFÂ’s program was going to be resumed. On Friday, investors awaited the decision of Islamabad High Court about the Al-Qadir Trust case.
The dollarÂ’s depreciation against rupee also raised the confidence of the investors. The KSE-100 index lost 754 points or 1.8% week-on-week and settled at 41,488. ?
Muhammad Waqas Ghani of JS Global reports that in a turnabout from the previous trend, the market closed negative in the last week. He said, “Investors chose to stay on sidelines as a result of former premier’s arrest and the subsequent nationwide violent protests.”
The performance of the Exploration and Production (E&P) and technical sectors week-on-week have been 6 percent and 3.5 percent down respectively. There was the contraction in budget deficit to 1.7 percent of GDP during the nine months of the ongoing fiscal year.
The deficit expanded by 17 percent year-on-year. The foreign remittances during the first 10 months of this financial year came down by 13 percent year-on-year. As a whole, the foreign exchange reserves of the central bank remained stable.
There was positive contribution in PSX from tobacco which was 2.2 points and from ?Modaraba, it was 0.3 points. Negative contribution was witnessed from oil and gas exploration companies which was 220 points, from commercial banks, it was 212 points, from technology and communication, it was 164 points, from fertilizer, it was 137 points and from cement the negative contribution was 83 points. ?