Stock Watch.

Warmongering push KSE-100 index down 1.2 wow

Summary

The gravity of Indo-Pak tension started to build up when on last Sunday Prime Minister Imran Khan gave a speech urging India's Prime Minister to give peace a chance. The Indo-Pak tension was building up since Pulwama attack in India on Feb.14. It reached to its climax this week.

The KSE-100 Index was negative since last two days of the previous week. The exchange of airstrikes this week between India and Pakistan on Line of Control (LoC) worsened the situation and had its impact on KSE-100 Index, which lost 477 points during the week to close at 39,539.02 on Friday.

There were wild fluctuations in the KSE-100 Index, which at time was down 1,491 points to a gain of 659 points during the week .The foreigners who were buyer last week turned seller to $1.31m while mutual funds and individuals off loaded their portfolio by $11.31m and $10m respectively. Due to brisk buying and selling, the average volume this week improved to 160 million from 105 million last week. The market capitalization too improved by 131 billion to stand at Rs.8,085 trillion on Friday.

The KSE-100 Index gained grounds on Thursday and Friday after the announcement by the premier on Thursday to release Indian pilot on Friday. The Index added 846 points on last two days of the week as investors saw de-escalation of the border tension. The individual investors turned buyers by $2.63m in these two days.

During the week, the KSE-100 Index declined on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday as 39,606.34 (-409.34);38,821.67 (-728.12) and 38,692.69(-128.98). It however recovered on Thursday and Friday as 39,054.61 (+361.92) and 39,539.02(+484.41).

Participants/Activity

On average shares of 357 companies were traded . Of these142 were gainers and 197 were losers and 18 remained unchanged.

Foreigners were net seller $1.31m during the week ;companies were buyer by $4.75m, Banks were buyer $3.53m; Mutual fund net seller 11.31m and individuals net seller $10.00m.

Volume leaders during the week were: Bank of Punjab 92m, K-Electric 47m; Fauji Cement 18m; Pak Elektron 14m; Engro Polymer and Lottee Chemical 12m each; Pak Int'l Bulk and World Telecom 10 m each. Engro Polymer 8m; Maple Maple Leaf Cement and OGDC 6m each; Siddiquesons Tin and UBL 5m each.

Triggers

* Consumer Price Index (CPI), Wholesale Price Index and Sensitive Price Index (SPI)...