KARACHI: Pakistan stocks slipped by 445 points on Monday owing to fears of increase in key policy rate by the central bank.
The benchmark KSE-100 index of Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) ended at 40,674 points from last Friday’s closing of 41,119 points, showing a decline of 445 points.
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Analysts at Arif Habib Limited said that the PSX witnessed a negative session to kick off the week.
The market opened in the red and continued to trade in that region, reaching an intraday low of -494.64 points on speculation of a policy rate hike in the coming days.
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Given the country’s political turmoil, investors chose to remain on the sidelines, resulting in significant volume declines across the board, while 3rd equities remained in the spotlight.
Sectors contributing to the performance include E&P’s (-139.1 points), Commercial Banks (-95.1 points), Fertilizer (-44.9 points), OMCs (-41.3 points), and Cement (-38.6 points).
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Volumes decreased from 110.4 million shares to 92.7 million shares (-16.0 per cent DoD). The average traded value also decreased by 4.3 per cent to USD 17.0 million as against USD 17.8 million.
Stocks that contributed significantly to the volumes are WTL, OGDC, TRG, CNERGY and BOP.
