KARACHI: Pakistan Stock Exchange witnessed bullish trend and recorded healthy gains during the outgoing week ended on February 23, 2024 due to reviving investor interest following the agreement among major political parties to proceed with the formation of a coalition government.
The benchmark KSE-100 index surged by 2,942.86 points on week-on-week basis and closed at 62,815.82 points.
Trading activities however remained slightly low as average daily volumes on ready counter decreased by 3.3 percent to 338.36million shares during this week as compared to previous week’s average of 349.76 million shares while average daily traded value on the ready counter declined by 6.2 percent to Rs 12.66 billion during this week against previous week’s Rs 13.50 billion.
BRIndex100 added 367.41 points during this week to close at 6,440.71 points with average daily turnover of 303.985 million shares.
BRIndex30 increased by 1,777.43 points on week-on-week basis to close at 22,098.49 points with average daily trading volumes of 228.936 million shares.
The foreign investors also remained net buyers of shares worth $2.884 million. Total market capitalization increased by Rs 364 billion during this week to Rs 9.081 trillion.
“Having political tumult settling, the market bounced back and regained the points lost in the previous week”, an analyst at AKD Securities said. To recall, the market had lost 3000 points last week amidst political uncertainty.
Overall, week started with the positivity, however exacerbated after Bilawal Bhutto Zardari’s announcement on Tuesday night of PM and President joint candidates. Similarly, provincial assemblies also began taking shape, with Punjab MPAs taking oaths and the announcement of the Sindh CM’s name on Friday.
Additionally, healthy corporate earnings and developments on the economic front supported the market’s bullish momentum, with CAD for January 2024 remaining depressed at $269million. Furthermore, FBR’s tax collection rose by 30 percent YoY from July 2023 to mid-February 2024, with total collection reaching Rs 5.15trillion during the period.
Moreover, notification of deregulation of non-essential medications led to a rally in the pharmaceutical sector, posting the highest gains during the week. However, in the last T-bill auction on Wednesday, yields for 3-month papers rose by 126bps as participants foresee a status quo in the next MPC scheduled in March 2024.
Sector-wise, Pharmaceutical, Woollen, and Technology sectors were amongst the top performers, up 9.7 percent/8.7 percent/7.9 percent WoW respectively.
On the other hand, Property, Synthetic & Rayon, and Vanaspatisectors were amongst the worst performers with a decline of 2.6 percent/2.3 percent/1.9 percent WoW.
Flow wise, major net selling was recorded by individuals with a net sell of $6.2million. On the other hand, Mutual Funds absorbed most of the selling with a net buy of $3.3million.
Company-wise, top performers during the week were YOUW (up 32.1 percent), SEARL (up 17.9 percent), OGDC (up 16.0 percent), PSO (up 15.8 percent) and ABOT (up 15.3 percent), while top laggards were PSEL (down 10.3 percent), GADT (down 6.5 percent), JVDC (down 5.5 percent), NESTLE (down 3.5 percent) and FATIMA (down 3.1 percent).
An analyst at JS Global Capital said that the KSE-100 index gained 5.0 percent WoW and this increase followed the agreement among political parties to proceed with the formation of a coalition government led by Pakistan Muslim League- Nawaz (PML-N).
Pakistan’s dollar bond prices also jumped in the range of 1-6 percent across the board after the two major political parties reached an agreement to form a coalition government.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2024
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