Pakistan stocks witness bloodbath on HBL terror probe

KARACHI: Pakistan stocks witnessed bloodbath on Thursday following reports circulated regarding scrutiny of Habib Bank Limited (HBL) regarding assisting terror organizations.

The benchmark KSE-100 index of Pakistan Stock (PSX) ended 41,014 points from previous day’s closing of 41,435 points, showing a decline of 421 points.

Analysts at Arif Habib Limited said that the benchmark KSE-100 index witnessed a bloodbath session today due to current political clamor and the negative news pertaining to HBL.

Habib Bank Limited (HBL) came under scrutiny once again and has been alleged to provide financial support to the terrorist organizations.

As per the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA), HBL Bank has repeated misconduct and revealed a pattern of funding terrorism at various occasions in the last decade as of 2006.

Plaintiffs in these consolidated cases are 370 individuals who were injured or whose family members were injured or killed in terrorist attacks, who bring this action against HBL Bank under the Anti- Terrorism Act (ATA), as amended by the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (“JASTA”).

Recall that HBL Bank and HBL’s New York Branch were previously implicated in money laundering and terrorist financing back in 2017.

As investors opted to remain on side line from the market because of hazy economic forecast, the market opened in the red and remained under pressure for the rest of the day making an intra-day low of -524.31 points.

The volumes declined significantly across the main board on the contrary decent volumes were observed in the 3rd tier stocks.

Sectors contributing to the performance include Banks (-246.8 points), Technology (-53.0 points), E&Ps (-26.8 points), Chemicals (-21.7 points) and Fertilizers (-17.8 points).

Volumes decreased from 220.6 million shares to 127.4 million shares (-42.2 per cent DoD). The average traded value also decreased by 31.3 per cent to US$ 24.0 million as against US$ 35.0 million.

Stocks that contributed significantly to the volumes are KEL, TPLP, TRG, NCL and FCCL.