Stocks beaten by institutional profit-booking

Stocks on Friday backtracked on earlier gains to close lower as institutions booked profits amid worries over inflation and trade deficit numbers, traders said.

The Pakistan Stock Exchange’s (PSX) benchmark KSE-100 Share Index closed at 47,356.02 points after losing 114.39 points or 0.24 percent.

The index hit a high of 47,686.18 points and a low of 47,800.57 points during the session.

Zafar Moti, former director PSX, said investors took their positions and booked profits on the last day of the week while majority of them was cautious on Hascol going on default counter.

Previously companies were put on default counter for not complying with the rules after five years, but Hascol was sent to defaulter counter for not giving dividend for two years.

KSE-30 Shares Index also slipped by 33.32 points or 0.17 percent to 19,100.47 points.

Ahsan Mehanti, senior analyst at Arif Habib Corp, said stocks closed lower on institutional profit taking amid dismal CPI Inflation at 9.7 percent year-on-year in Jun 2021 and trade deficit $30.8 billion, surging 33 percent for FY21.

He added that oil and auto stocks outperformed on upbeat data for OMCs (oil marketing companies) sales surging 18 percent year-on-year and tax concessions in the auto sector.

Investor concerns over likely MSCI downgrade to frontier market status, circular debt, and foreign selling mounted selling pressure on the bourse, Mehanti said.

Moreover, Primerica Inc, a leading provider of financial services to middle-income families throughout the United States and Canada, has announced that the company has closed its previously announced acquisition of 80 percent of Etelequote, which is a subsidiary of TRG International (TRGIL). The transaction has an enterprise value of $600 million and an implied equity value of approximately $450 million. An estimated consideration for TRGIL is $309 million.

Turnover dropped 197 million shares to 563.81 million against 760 million shares. Trading value slightly increased to Rs16.33 billion against Rs16.25 billion. Market capital rose to 8.360 trillion from 8.384 trillion. Out of 414 active scrips in the session, 175 advanced, 224 declined, while 15 shares neither gained nor lost.

Nabeel Haroon at Topline Securities said continuing its momentum from Thursday market remained in positive zone during the first half of the trading session, but pressure was observed in second half as investors came in to book profits above 48,000 level.

Highest gains was recorded in shares of Sapphire Fiber, which rose Rs57 to Rs847 per share, followed by Bata (Pak) up Rs47.39 to close at Rs1,719.66 per share.

Major losses was noted in shares of Unilever Foods, which fell Rs990 to Rs16,000 per share, followed by Gatron Industries that shed Rs33.20 to close at Rs442 per share.

Major contribution to the index came from AGP, LUCK, TRG, KOHC and EFERT, as they cumulatively added 66 points to the index, on the flip side HUBC, PPL, HASCOL, CHCC and MCB lost value to weigh down on the index by 67 points.

Hascol Petrol was the volume leader with 49.53 million shares, but lost 85 paisas to close at Rs8.26 per share. WorldCall Telecom with 43.77 million shares was the second most traded stock and it shed four paisas to finish at Rs4.06 per share. Shares’ turnover in the future contracts increased to 95.72 million from 85.77 million shares traded on Thursday.