Karachi: Pakistan stock market failed to overcome the bearish sentiments even though a decent recovery attempt to confirm the emergence of the fourth wave of the COVID infection in the country made the investors cautious again.
The benchmark KSE-100 Index lost 122.73 points during the ended week to 47,563.45 on Friday compared to 47,686.18 points at the start of the week.
The market had a very negative start, but the recovery on the back of some positive news related to US-Pakistan relations raised hope in the mid of week. However, one of the biggest worrying issues for the market emerged as the government confirmed the start of the fourth wave of COVID infection in Pakistan could lead to lockdowns and restrictions on social including business activities, traders and analysts said. We hope that the fourth wave will pass without disturbing the trade and economy InshaAllah, they added.
Federal Minister for Planning and head of the National Command and Control Centre (NCOC), Asad Umar, had said that there are clear signs of the emergence of the fourth wave in Pakistan. Umar said that the main reason for this is poor compliance from the people.
The minister took to Twitter and said that now there are “clear early signs of 4th wave starting” in the country due to “poor SOP compliance, coupled with the spread of variants of concern, Indian variant, in particular, are the main cause”.
