Stocks shed 518 points on monetary tightening concerns

KARACHI: Pakistan stocks ended down by 518 points on Thursday owing to rising concerns of further monetary tightening.

The benchmark KSE-100 index of Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) ended at 42,238 points from previous day’s closing of 42,756 points in interbank foreign exchange market, showing a decline of 518 points.

Analysts at Arif Habib Limited said that the the market continued selling momentum from the previous session as rise in 3 months Treasury-Bills yields went up by 75 basis points to 15.25 per cent which raised concerns over a possible hike in the policy rate.

It is pertinent to mention that the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) in its latest monetary policy announcement on May 23, 2022 raised the policy rate by 150 basis points to 13.75 points.

The KSE-100 index made an intraday low of 623 points as selling pressure was witnessed across the board. Volumes remained dull although 3rd tier stocks were in the limelight.

Sectors contributing to the performance include Banks (-105.8 points), Fertilizer (-66.8 points), Cement (-62.3 points), Technology (-48.7 points) and Chemicals (-45.8 points).

Volumes decreased from 194.4 million shares to 157.0 million shares (-19.2 per cent DOD). Average traded value also decreased by 1.2 per cent to reach US$ 26.8 million as against US$ 27.1 million.

Stocks that contributed significantly to the volume are PRL, UNITY, CNERGY, SILK and WTL.