Every PE, PB and dividend-yield figure for a PSX-listed company comes out of one of four filings it makes across the year, and those four filings are not equally reliable — two are unaudited, one is only reviewed, and only one carries a full audit opinion. Knowing which filing a number came from, and what level of scrutiny that filing actually got, is as much a part of reading it correctly as the ratio arithmetic itself.
The filing cycle, and what scrutiny each stage actually got
Companies Act 2017 sets the deadlines and the framework a PSX-listed company files under. Section 237 requires listed companies to transmit quarterly accounts within 30 days of the close of the first and third quarters, and within 60 days of the close of the second quarter (the half-year). Section 132 sets the AGM at no later than 120 days after the financial year-end, and section 233 requires the audited annual accounts to be filed with the registrar within 30 days of that AGM.
The distinction that matters for reading any single figure: Q1 and Q3 numbers are management-prepared and unaudited — no external auditor has touched them by the filing deadline. The half-year figure gets a “limited scope review,” an auditor procedure that is real but explicitly lighter than a full audit — it provides negative assurance (“nothing came to our attention”) rather than the positive opinion a full audit gives. Only the annual accounts carry a complete audit, with an auditor’s opinion covering both the financial statements themselves and, in a second section, the company’s compliance with other legal and regulatory requirements. A ratio built from a Q3 EPS is standing on a different level of verification than the same ratio built from the audited annual EPS, even though both are “PSX company-filed” numbers.
| Document | Covers | Scrutiny |
|---|---|---|
| Quarterly accounts (Q1, Q3) | One quarter | Unaudited — management-prepared |
| Half-yearly accounts | Six months, cumulative | Auditor reviewed — limited scope, not a full audit |
| Annual accounts | Full financial year | Fully audited — auditor issues a formal opinion |
| Directors' Report | Full financial year | Board commentary, not an audited figure itself |
| Chairman's Review | Full financial year | Board commentary, not an audited figure itself |
What sits around the numbers in the annual report
The audited annual accounts are the anchor filing, but a PSX annual report bundles several other documents around them: a Chairman’s Review and a Directors’ Report, both board commentary rather than audited figures in their own right, and a Statement of Compliance with the Code of Corporate Governance, which reports on the company’s governance practices rather than its financial results. None of these three is itself a source for a valuation ratio — the EPS, book value and dividend per share behind PE, PB and dividend yield come only from the audited financial statements and their notes, not from the narrative sections around them.
Why the filing date on a number matters as much as the number
A PSX company’s fiscal year-end is not fixed across the board. D.G. Khan Cement’s and most industrials’ filings run on a year ending 30 June, while some other PSX companies — a fact the desk checked directly against PSX’s own filings while researching how these ratios work — file against a year ending 31 December instead. A bank like Meezan or Habib Bank sits inside its own sector’s reporting rhythm the same way any other PSX company does — the point generalises, not the specific date, and the specific date for any one company is only ever answered by that company’s own latest filing, not by assumption. Two companies’ “latest annual report” can therefore cover two different twelve-month windows, which matters directly for any ratio that compares them — checking the period a filing actually covers is part of using it correctly, not an optional extra step.
Checking any of this yourself
- PSX Data Portal Services — company announcements — every listed company’s quarterly, half-yearly and annual filings, in the order submitted, including the fiscal year-end each one covers
- SECP — Companies Act 2017 — the filing deadlines and audit requirements summarised above (sections 132, 233, 237)
Whatever a company’s filings show, turning a valuation read into an actual position size is a separate step — the desk’s position-size calculator covers that, and the fair-value tool runs the ratios above against the latest filed numbers automatically.
Research, not advice. This explains what a PSX company files and how much scrutiny each filing carries; it is not a recommendation to buy or sell anything. Always check which filing a number came from, and what period it actually covers, before comparing it across companies.