KARACHI: Pakistan Stock Exchange witnessed bullish trend during the outgoing two-day trading week ended on April 09, 2024 and closed at highest ever level in its history with healthy gains on the back of aggressive buying by both local and foreign investors coupled with institutional support.
The market opened on Monday and Tuesday and remained closed from Wednesday to Friday due to Eid-ul-Fitr holidays.
The benchmark KSE-100 index surged by 1,898 points or 2.77 percent on week-on-week basis and closed at its highest ever level of 70,315 points. Trading activities also improved as average daily volumes on ready counter increased by 18 percent to 363million shares during this week while the average daily value traded settled at $59million.
BRIndex100 soared by 221.34 points during this week to close at 7,280.92 points with average daily turnover of 321.235 million shares.
BRIndex30 increased by 631.09 points on week-on-week basis to close at 23,627.91 points with average daily trading volumes of 226.218 million shares.
The foreign investors remained net buyers of shares worth $4.2million during this week. Total market capitalization increased by Rs 216 billion to Rs 9.760 trillion.
An analyst at Arif Habib Limited said that the positive sentiment stemmed from the agreement between Pakistan and KSA to expedite the planned Saudi investment package for Pakistan worth $5.0 billion, during Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s visit to KSA. Moreover, Pakistan’s government international bond of $1.0 billion is set to mature on 15th April 2024.
Furthermore, remittances increased by 16 percent YoY to $3.0billion during March 2024, the highest remittances after April 2022. Additionally, during the week PKR remained unchanged at Rs 277.94 against USD.
Sector-wise positive contributions came from commercial banks (up 563 points), fertilizer (up 344 points), E&P (up 250 points), Power (up 179 points) and OMC’s (up 106 points). Meanwhile, the sectors which mainly contributed negatively were automobile parts (down 4.0 points) and insurance (down 3.0 points).
Scrip-wise positive contributors were FFC (up 352 points), HUBC (up 176 points), MEBL (up 172 points), UBL (up 113 points) and MCB (up 89 points). Meanwhile, scrip-wise negative contributions came from ENGRO (down 51points), DAWH (down 45 points), BAFL (down 14 points), ILP (down 5 points) and KEL (down 5 points).
Foreigner buying continued during this week, clocking in at $4.2million compared to a net buy of $3.9 million last week. Major buying was witnessed in All Other Sector (net buying $3.2 million) and Commercial Banks (net buying $0.8 million). On the local front, selling was reported by Banks/DFIs (net selling $4.9 million) followed by Individuals (net selling $3.2 million).
Leading analyst Muhammad Sohail said that Pakistan’s stock market KSE-100 Index is at an all-time high crossing 70,000 level. This KSE-100 index includes dividend being a total return index.
However KSE-30 index (Ex- Dividend) is still down 18 percent from its peak seen on May-2017. That’s why share prices of many companies are much lower than levels seen on 2017, he added.
“Valuations of Pakistan stocks remain attractive despite recent rally, with the average market price-to-earnings (PE) ratio near 4x, half of the historical average of 8x.”
Copyright Business Recorder, 2024
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