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Dawn February 24, 2020       Stocks began the new week on a free fall, with the benchmark KSE-100 index losing over 1,105 points – down 2.82 per cent – to close at 39, 143, well below the 40,000 barrier. Today’s losses followed a lacklustre last week during which the market remained largely flat as bulls and bears managed to secure an upper hand in turns. The index had closed Friday almost flat with a minor uptick of just six points (0.01 per cent) at 40,249 from Monday (Feb 17). Ali Asghar Poonawala, Deputy Head of Research at AKD Securities, told  Dawn.com  the predominant reason for the downslide was the "FATF statement maintaining Pakistan on the grey list". He said significant headwinds, partially flowing through from last week (macro weakness as government manages inflationary pressures while aiming to meet IMF's performance criteria), were brought to light by the "relatively harshly worded FATF statement". Poonawala said even...

Money Control Abhishek Goenka February  24, 2020 While coronavirus may not have impacted the country directly as much, but the Indian economy, which is just about showing some signs of recovery, may not escape unscathed. The green shoots could get nipped in the bud. India's annual trade with China is ~$90 billion--India imports goods worth $75 billion and exports goods worth $15 billion. On account of factory closures in China, supply chains would get disrupted and this could result in shortages, especially of electronic goods and medicines. A lot of pharma companies rely on APIs (active pharmaceutical ingredients) sourced from parts of China that are worst affected by the virus outbreak. We may see a temporary contraction in imports till the time some semblance of normalcy is restored in China. Trade deficit prints may be lower for the next couple of months. We may see the price of consumer durables inch higher. This would drive core inflation higher, which is showi...

Economics Times February 24,2020 US satellite broadband provider Hughes Network Systems may have to shut its Indian operations due to unpaid levies owed to the government, which could put thousands of banking services at risk, a company letter seen by Reuters showed.  The Supreme Court late last year ordered a  number of telecom companies, including Hughes and larger firms like Vodafone, to pay billions of dollars owed to the government. Hughes' India unit provides services to defence, education and banking sectors in the country and told the telecom ministry in a letter dated February 20 that it faces bankruptcy as it can't pay the Rs 600 crore ($84 million) it owes. The closure of the company could disrupt connectivity at more than 70,000 banking locations and many critical satellite networks in the Indian navy, army and railways, Hughes' India President Partho Banerjee said in the letter, which was seen by Reuters. "We are facing a huge demand...