RECORDER REVIEW
KARACHI: Pakistan Stock Exchange witnessed bullish trend during the outgoing week ended May 15, 2020 on the back of healthy buying mainly by local investors and institutions.
BRIndex100 gained 90.02 points on week-on-week basis to close at 3,503.78 points with average daily volumes of 187.187 million shares.
BRIndex30 increased by 523.27 points to close at 18,316.93 points with average daily turnover of 133.958 million shares.
KSE-100 index surged by 740.64 points or 2.2 percent on week-on-week basis and closed at 34,008.33 points. Trading activities also slightly improved as average daily volumes on ready counter increased by 15.2 percent to 219.10 million shares as compared to previous week’s average of 190.19 million shares. Average daily trading value however decreased by 20.7 percent to Rs 6.47 billion.
The foreign investors remained net sellers of shares worth $10.9 million during this week. Total market capitalization increased by Rs 124 billion to Rs 6.429 trillion.
An analyst at AKD Securities said that the KSE-100 index closed the week in green as investors focused on the reopening of parts of the economy and monetary policy announcement at the end of the week. Moreover, economic releases showing unprecedented contraction in economic activity (LSM down 22.0 percent on MoM in March’20) kept market participants undeterred as investors seemed to take hope that the economy was bottoming.
The announcement of the MSCI semi-annual review brought fresh wave of interest in PPL and MARI (included in the small cap index, replacing NML and SNGP) while HBL pared some losses after status quo on existent constituents in the MSCI standard index.
Top gainers during the week were TRG (up 23.8 percent), YOUW (up 16.4 percent), CHCC (up 15.7 percent), EFUG (up 15.6 percent) and FATIMA (up 13.2 percent), while laggards were IDYM (down 20.8 percent), HMM (down 8.5 percent), PMPK (down 6.4 percent), SNGP (down 5.3 percent) and INDU (down 4.9 percent).
An analyst at JS Global Capital said that after correction witnessed in the last week, the KSE-100 index gained 2.2 percent during this week, to close at 34,008.
Moody’s report was released this week where the rating agency put Pakistan under review for downgrade, which had little impact on the local bourse; while semi-annual MSCI EM review also remained a non-event.
On the sector front, Cements (up 5.0 percent) continued its ride over contract award of Diamer Basha Dam. During the week, FEROZ gained 44 percent as the company announced agreement between its subsidiary and Gilead for manufacturing experimental drug Remdesivir. Moreover, Pharma sector gained 6.0 percent over anticipation of other companies to ink similar agreements. The Fertilizer sector also outperformed the bourse (up 4.0 percent) as the government announced a relief package for the agriculture sector that included subsidies on fertilizer prices.
