KARACHI: The Pakistan bourse remained under pressure on Tuesday after the Prime Minister warned of tough International Monetary Fund (IMF) conditions besides surging inflation in the country.
Ahsan Mehanti at Arif Habib Corp said that speculations ahead of the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) policy announcement due next week and likely SBP policy tightening next week played a catalyst role in the bearish close.
The Pakistan Stock Exchange KSE-100 shares Index shed 0.27 per cent, or 112.95 points, to close at 41,765.62 points. The KSE-30 shares Index shed 0.47 per cent, or 74.98 points, to close at 15,933.83 points.
As many as 331 scrips were active of which 123 advanced, 192 declined and 16 remained unchanged.
An analyst at Arif Habib Limited said that the benchmark index opened in a green zone as Pakistan received a MEFP from the IMF for combined 7th and 8th review which signaled an early inflow of $1.9 billion in the coming days.
However, late profit taking was observed in the last hours of the session as Pakistan’s current account deficit surged to 3-months high reaching $1.4 billion in May.
The government is going to present the Finance Bill amendments today with the additional taxation measures coupled with imposition of 10 per cent super tax on 13 industries,” he added.
Therefore, we expect the market to move in line with the economic news inflows. Hence, we suggest our investors to book profits at a higher level,” he said.
The ready market volumes stood at 257.16 million shares, compared with the turnover of 247.90 million shares in the last trading session.
The companies which reflected the highest gains included Nestle Pakistan up Rs290 to close at Rs5,990/share, Bata (Pak) up Rs155.10 to close at Rs2,288/share.
The companies which reflected the most losses included Siemens Pakistan down Rs30.01 to close at Rs649.99/share, and Mari Petroleum down Rs21.48 to close at Rs1,769.49/share.
The highest volumes were witnessed in K Electric Ltd with a turnover of 28.04 million shares. The scrip gained 4 paisas to close at Rs3.13/share, followed by Oilboy Energy(R) with a turnover of 23.89 million shares. It shed 55 paisas to close at 4 paisas/share. WorldCall Telecom remained the third with a turnover of 17.06 million shares. It shed 4 paisas to finish at Rs1.39/share.
