Pakistan’s stock market has lost another 978 points on Tuesday amid growing political and economic uncertainty in the country in the backdrop of humiliating defeat of PML-N in by-election in Punjab province on July 17.
On Tuesday (July 19), KSE-100 index recorded 978 points decline, falling to 40,389 points or 2.36 percent. Market traded 102.727 million shares today amounting to 4.672 billion rupees.
The coalition parties led by PML-N are holding a crucial meeting in Lahore today to make decisions about new Punjab government, general elections and electoral reforms.
Analysts believe that the IMF could put on hold the disbursement of next tranche even after the signing of staff level agreement in case the government breached any of the IMF upfront conditions.
After suffering an insulting defeat in the by-polls in Punjab, PML-N has realised that its blind pursuit of IMF’s harsh conditions has led to its debacle in election. Additionally, the PML-N offered tickets to PTI’s turncoats which enraged the workers of both the parties _ PML-N and PTI.
According to analysts, the market was worried that sticking to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) programme may be “politically difficult”.
Ahsan Mehanti, managing director of the Arif Habib Commodities said, “The effects of the depreciation of the rupee are coming to the market.”
“We have seen intense selling of the blue chip stocks today, the effects of which are now visible,” Mehanti said.
He explained that investors would now prefer safe investments in fixed incomes, which was the reason for the recent decrease in the average business volume of the market.
