The KSE-100 index couldn’t carry forward yesterday’s rally and went through a turbulent session today. The index graph went up and down throughout the day, finally settling above 42600 by day end. The benchmark index has recovered in the last few sessions as it took its worst hammering in August since 09 crash. All of PSX indexes have yielded negative returns in 2017 year to date; KSE-100 -11.5%, KSE-30 -16.0%, KMI 30 -12.2% and KSE – All Share -7.9% have all been down in the year, thanks to the exposed political and economic underbelly. Analysts expect the markets to carry forward this momentum into the upcoming week as anticipation builds on FTSE rebalancing on Monday which is expected to bring much needed positivity in the market.

Current Account Deficit (CAD) has become an Achilles heel’s for Pakistani economy. With imports on upward trajectory and no respite for the declining exports, the CAD continues to widen, it has depleted Foreign Exchange reserves in the country by 9% since June, 2017. Pakistan is contemplating a variety of options to raise the much needed money including; Loans from Foreign Banks and Issuance of Dollar Bonds/Sukuks.

In the regional scenario, five additional stocks (MCB, SNGP, BAFL, MTL & THAL) from Pakistan are all set to be added in the FTSE Asia Pacific ex Japan Index from Monday next week. As the week closes, institutional buyers are increasing their position in value stocks, as market amalysts expect the market to recover on the back of FTSE rebalancing. According to analysts, institutional investors showed interest in Financials, Oils and selected index names banking on expected higher inflows from foreign investors.

In Corporate news, Kohinoor Textile Mills Limited (KTML), Orix Leasing Pak Ltd. (ORIX), Island Textile Mills Ltd. (ORIX), Salfi Textile Mills (SALT) and Tata Textile Mills (TATM) announced financial results for the six, half-year and twelve months period. ORIX reported an increase of 2.4 percent in Income for the period whereas the Profit for the company increased by 10.69 percent.

KSE-100 Index at the day gained a total of 373.45 points up by 0.88%, closing at 42683.57 points. Index Volume was 80.41 million shares, value of shares traded was PKR 7.72 billion with index low-high range of 42171.26 – 42732.51.