Karachi: Negative sentiment gripped Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) as benchmark KSE-100 Index witnessed fall of over 1 percent during trading session.

By end of session, benchmark index closed with loss of 423.6 points or 1.09 percent to 38,407.98 level. Market fell over 500 points in intra-day trading before recovering slightly. Across-the-board pressure was seen as index-heavy sectors including, automobiles, cement, chemical, commercial banks and oil and gas exploration companies traded in negative.

Volume on all-share index plummeted to 93.5 million from 157.8 million Thursday. Value of shares traded nearly halved to Rs 3.5 billion from Rs 6.4 billion recorded in previous session.

Pakistan Petroleum was volume leader with 8.3 million shares followed by WorldCall Telecom with 5.6 million shares and Ghani Chemical Industries with 5.1 million shares. Shares of 314 companies were traded of which 103 registered an increase, 194 recorded fall and 17 remained unchanged. Market experts attributed development to ongoing uncertainty pertaining to crucial International Monetary Fund programme, which remains stalled to date. “Mutual fund redemptions are also being witnessed at bourse, which is major reason behind decline. This is creating pressure on market,” Abdullah Umer, market analyst told.

Economic experts and markets expressed concern over government’s inability to resume IMF’s ninth review, as it remains indecisive over fulfilling lender’s pre-requisites, such as additional revenue commitments, an increase in PDL and GST on petroleum products and hike in electricity and gas tariff.

Published in The Daily National Courier, January, 21 2023

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