KARACHI: Pakistani equities fell Tuesday as a result of aggressive selling prompted by proposed changes to tax rules, which contrasted with the global optimistic trend in stock markets after Donald Trump was sworn in as the 47th president of the United States.
According to Topline Securities Ltd., the benchmark index had a good start to the day and hit an intraday high of 116,425 points. But because of mid-session profit-taking, the index closed at 115,042 points, down 803 points, or 0.69 percent, from the day before.
The trading firm said that a tiny percentage of stock market participants who are not filers may be impacted by the tax changes.
Mari Petroleum, Hub Power, Oil and Gas Development Company, Lucky Cement, and PSO were the main forces driving the downward trend; together, they eliminated 543 points. According to Ahsan Mehanti of Arif Habib Corporation, investor confidence was tempered by worries about the weak GDP forecasts, conjectures regarding the government-PTI negotiations, and anticipations of a cautious SBP policy rate drop.
According to Ali Najib, Head of Sales at Insight Securities, early gains were erased by selling headwinds above and above the 116,000 level.
As they chose to restructure in advance of the next meeting of the Monetary Policy Committee, he thought, “market vibes are suggesting that the profit-taking-cum-selling was driven by institutions including pension and mutual funds.”
Mutual funds and banks both sold shares worth $0.58 million and $3.56 million, respectively, turning them into net sellers.
However, the traded value fell 15.0 percent to Rs31.82 billion on a daily basis, while the trading volume increased 23.66 percent to 767.67 million shares.
Cnergyico PK (114.03 million shares), Bank Makramah (69.47 million shares), WorldCall Telecom (64.22 million shares), Fauji Cement (53.69 million shares), and Citi Pharma Ltd (23.40 million shares) were among the stocks that made up a sizable portion of the trading volume.
In absolute terms, Hoechst Pakistan (Rs121.84), Rafhan Maize (Rs94.94), Sapphire Fibres (Rs66.93), Pakistan Engineering Company (Rs61.02), and PIA Holding Company B were the shares that had the biggest price rises.
Unilever Foods (Rs299.49), Khyber Textile (Rs43.88), Ismail Industries (Rs34.54), Sazgar Engineering Company (Rs33.38), and Lucky Cement (Rs31.48) were the firms that saw the biggest declines in their share prices in absolute terms.
