RECORDER REVIEW

KARACHI: Pakistan Stock Exchange witnessed positive trend during the last week of the year ended on December 30, 2022 on the back of aggressive buying in almost all sectors.

The benchmark KSE-100 index surged by 751.25 points on week-on-week basis and crossed 40,000 psychological-level to close at 40,420.45 points.

Trading activities also improved during this week as average daily volumes on ready counter increased by 18.9 percent to 214.28 million shares as compared to previous week’s average of 180.21 million shares while average daily traded value on ready counter increased by 39.6 percent to Rs 6.84 billion against previous week’s average of 4.90 billion.

BRIndex100 gained 81.24 points during this to close at 3,996.85 points with average daily turnover of 188.639 million shares.

BRIndex30 increased by 231.45 points on week-on-week basis and crossed 14,000 level to close at 14,037.33 points with average daily trading volumes of 101.984 million shares.

The foreign investors remained on the selling side and withdrew $16.59million from local equity market during this week. Total market capitalization increased by Rs 175 billion during this week to Rs 6.500 trillion.

An analyst at AKD Securities said that the KSE-100 index settled at 40,420 points at the end of the week depicting a gain of 1.89 percent on week-on-week basis largely attributable to renewed interest in the oil and gas sector as the Government constitutes a new committee for circular debt resolution.

Sector-wise, the top performing sectors were Food & Personal care products (up 10.3 percent), Leasing Companies (up 8.9 percent) and Leather and Tanneries (up 7.6 percent), while the least favourite sectors were Woolen (down 5.0 percent), Textile Weaving (down 2.9 percent) and Automobile Parts and Accessories (down 2.9 percent).

Stock-wise, top performers were PSMC (up 27.7 percent), HACR (up 22.7 percent), NESTLE (up 20.7 percent), PPL (up 18.6 percent) and PGLC (up 17.6 percent), while laggards were THALL (down 10.1 percent), YOUW (down 10.0 percent), NCL (down 9.9 percent), AICL (down 5.3 percent) and ARPL (down 5.2 percent).

Flow wise, Banks were the major buyers with net buy of $23.93 million, followed by Other Organizations (net buy of $3.91 million), while foreign investors were major sellers during the week, with a net sell of $16.59 million.

An analyst at JS Global Capital said that after a tough couple of weeks, the KSE-100 stabilized during the week closing at 40,420 points, up 1.89 percent on WoW.

The week started with the political situation in Punjab easing slightly as CM Pervaiz Elahi agreed not to dissolve the assembly on the directions of LHC.

Sector-wise, Food (up by 10.3 percent), E&P (up by 7.2 percent) and Cements (up by 4.9 percent) were among the outperformers during the week while Chemicals (down by 2.4 percent) and Fertilizer (down by 0.2 percent) weighed down on the market.