BRIndex100 gains 63 points
RECORDER REVIEW
KARACHI: Sentiments at the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) remained positive during the outgoing week on reports that Pakistan-IMF are inching towards striking staff-level agreement.
BRIndex100 gained 63 points on a week-on-week basis to close at 4,733.01 points at the end of the last week as against 4,670.02 points a week earlier. Trading volumes stood at 1,013 million shares.
BRIndex30 declined by 626 points and closed at 20,339.35 points down from 20,964.92 points of the previous week. Turnover at BRIndex30 was 683.782 million shares.
The benchmark KSE-100 Index continued its rebound from last week, to close up 1.7 percent WoW. The KSE-100 index closed at 45,578 points, gaining 757 points during the week ended on October 22, 2021. Trading activities remained dull as average daily volumes on the ready counter declined by 12 percent to 300 million shares as compared to previous week’s average of 341.88 million shares. Average daily traded value also fell 9 percent to Rs 11 billion.
The foreign investors’ selling continued this week, clocking-in at $ 7.3 million compared to a net sell of $13.3 million last week. Major selling was witnessed in Fertilizer (USD 4.5mn) and Commercial Banks (USD 3.8mn).
Analysts at Arif Habib Limited said the market commenced on a negative note this week given the uncertainty over outcome of Pakistan-IMF talks tagged with surge in petroleum prices raising concerns over inflation. However, the market sentiment changed after the Advisor to the PM informed that talks with the IMF were moving in the positive direction, with staff-level agreement expected to be reached soon.
According to AHL, sector-wise positive contributions came from Commercial Banks (463pts), Cement (184pts), Oil & Gas Exploration Companies (137pts), Fertilizer (107pts), and Insurance (42pts). Whereas the sectors contributed negatively were Technology and Communication (155pts), and Food & Personal Care Products (31pts).
Scrip-wise positive contributors were HBL (187pts), UBL (150pts), ENGRO (99pts), LUCK (72pts) and MCB (64pts). Meanwhile, scrip-wise negative contributions came from TRG (113pts), PSO (27pts) and SYS (26pts).
Analysts at Topline said that the KSE-100 index gained 1.7 percent on WoW basis. Major events in the outgoing week were prices of petroleum product were increased by up to Rs 10.49 per litre, news that Pakistan will raise funds worth $3.5 billion from issue of Global Bonds in this fiscal year comprising of Panda Bond, Eurobonds, Sukuk and green bonds to bridge financing gap, Pakistan’s Current Account deficit has clocked in at $1.113 billion in Sept-2021, IMF and Pakistan are inching towards striking staff-level agreement, government is all set to increase power tariff and FATF in its plenary meeting retained Pakistan on grey list.
According to JS weekly report apart from attractive valuations, spike in secondary market yields and some retracement in coal prices led to the bullish trend this week. Hence, key performing sectors included Banking (+3% WoW) and Cement (+4% WoW).
On the other hand, Auto sector (-3% WoW) was a major laggard as the sector’s margins continue to struggle over rising commodity, freight costs and Rs devaluation, making a case for price increase in the near future.
However, investor participation slid this week where average daily traded volumes reduced by 12% WoW to 300mn shares. Concerns over macro-economic indicators continued amid pro-longed negotiations with the IMF, where delays in appointment of ISI Chief also remained one of the key events under investors’ radar.
