Closing Bell: Bears remain unbeatable

May 3, 2019 (MLN): After demonstrating a negative return of 4.8% last month, the stock market seems to be on track for performing at its worst. The benchmark index closed the third consecutive day in red as the bears wiped the trading floor by 424 points in today’s trading session, which ultimately led to KSE-100 closing the week at 36,122 points. This has been the worst drop since June 2016.

What’s wrong with the stock market right now? There’s never any one reason why markets move or investors suddenly become extra fearful or optimistic. What’s happening now is a confluence of factors which are causing anxiety within investors.

Still, the last month’s swoon is making investors nervous. They're worried regarding the upcoming events like expectations about tougher budget on the back of stringent revenue measures dictated by IMF team, FATF's review on Pakistan's latest compliance report submitted in April and the Petroleum prices which are set to increase by 15% for May 2019. These multiple factors kept market participants at check.

Oil & Gas Exploration Companies emerged as the top loser during the session, as they snatched around 128 points from the index. Commercial Banks and Fertilizer Sector took the second and third lead as they lost approximately 95 and 60 points respectively by the day end. Furthermore, the scrips that significantly influenced the benchmark index’s performance included HBL (-3.69%), PPL (-4.66%), POL (-13.37%), OGDC (-2.4%) and ENGRO (-4.33%).

Moving within a range of 485 points, the index touched an intraday high of 36,556 points and an intraday low of 36,071 points. Moreover, the share prices of 19 companies reported an increase, 70 companies reported a decline whereas 2 company reported no change.

On the whole, 48.5 million shares of these 91 companies were traded today, at PKR 2.9 billion.

Meanwhile, the broader KSE All Share index lost 289 points in today’s trade and closed the session at 26,537 points which is 1.08% lower than yesterday’s closing value at the index.

A total of 64 million shares were traded within this index at PKR 2.9 billion.

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