From Zeeshan Mirza
Karachi: Shares at the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) lost over 500 points on Monday, with analysts attributing the sell-off to political uncertainty.
According to the PSX website, the benchmark KSE-100 index was trading at 47,648.33 points at 12:50pm, down 570.16 points or 1.18 per cent from the previous close of 48,218.49 points. Intermarket Securities’ Head of Equity Raza Jafri said that despite improvement in the last few months, the economy was still vulnerable.
“July’s large current account deficit is raising concerns of further interest rate hikes especially as inflation is still high,” he told Dawn.com, adding that a lack of clarity on circular debt settlement was also affecting investor sentiment.
Salman Naqvi, head of research at Aba Ali Habib Securities, attributed today’s losses to political uncertainty and the deteriorating law and order situation in the country.
Moreover, he said, the Oil and Gas Development Company (OGDC) had last week informed investors that the company hadn’t received any formal communication from authorities on the settlement of the circular debt.
“This doesn’t mean that this [circular debt settlement] is not in the pipeline… it is, but there is definitely an uncertainty surrounding the matter,” he added.
Naqvi further told that the market was on a “correction course” and predicted that this would continue for the next few days.
