Equity Markets suffer from a blackout as KSE-100 loses 816 points

May 13, 2019 (MLN): The KSE-100 index suffered from a massive blackout in today’s trading session, as it lost around 816 points and closed at 33,900 points, i.e. below 34,000-mark. As pointed out earlier, the much awaited IMF agreement failed to rescue the benchmark index from the dark dungeons. This has put equity markets in a tricky situation as IMF was the only hope for all market participants.

However, this behavior is understandable to some extent because agreement with IMF has also exposed the market to repercussions resulting from the terms and conditions which Pakistan will have to fulfill, which includes market-determined exchange rate, removal of subsidies and other painful measures.

E&P companies, Fertilizer sector, Commercial banks and Cement sector emerged as the worse performers in today’s session, as they collectively took away 544 points from the index. In addition, the scrips that significantly influenced the index’s performance included FFC (-4.99%), OGDC (-2.73%), POL (-4.44%), ENGRO (-2.01%) and PPL (-1.95%).

It is pertinent to mention that OGDC was amongst the worst performing scrips in today’s session in spite of an announcement made by the company today, regarding discovery of gas and condensate from its exploratory cum appraisal Well, Mangrio #01.

Engulfed within a range of whopping 1448 points, the index touched an intraday high of 35,227 points and an intraday low of 33,779 points. Moreover, the share prices of 5 companies reported an increase, 83 companies reported a decline whereas 3 companies reported no change.

The broader KSE All Share index ended the session on a parallel note, as it lost around 652 points to close the session at 25,041 points. It traded nearly 121 million shares, having a value of Rs. 5.2 billion.

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