Bearish trend runs out

After witnessing negative trend during the last five consecutive weeks, fresh buying was witnessed in various sectors that supported the Pakistan Stock Exchange to close on positive note on the end of outgoing week ended March 22, 2019. BRIndex100 gained 50.45 points on week-on-week basis to close at 4,067.61 points. Average daily trading volumes stood at 73.271 million shares.
BRIndex30 increased by 135.88 points to close at 20,587.25 points with average daily turnover of 50.275 million shares. KSE-100 index surged by 224.92 points on week-on-week basis and closed at 38,531.87 points. Trading activities remained low as average daily volumes on ready counter decreased by 10.1 percent to 83.88 million shares as compared to previous week's average of 93.27 million shares. Average daily trading value increased by 7.1 percent to Rs 3.95 billion. Total market capitalization increased by Rs declined by Rs 27 billion to Rs 7.846 trillion.
An analyst at AKD Securities said that breaking its five-week bearish trend, the KSE-100 index gained 0.59 percent on week-on-week basis in the outgoing week. Investor sentiment was buoyed by positive developments on the macro front namely contraction in latest monthly CAD (down 73 percent on year-on-year) and materialization of bilateral flows (i.e. firm commitment from China of $2.1 billion).
Sector-wise, E&P stocks rallied 2.9 percent on Prime Minister's statement regarding offshore drilling, while Textiles particularly lower end of the value chain (i.e. Spinning and Weaving: up 0.5 percent/0.8 percent) garnered investors' interest on potential Chinese market access.
Performance wise, PPL (up 5.51 percent), POL (up 4.73 percent), ASTL (up 4.26 percent), BAFL (up 4.11 percent) and MCB (up 3.29 percent) were the major gainers in AKD Universe, while laggards included PSMC (down 17.27 percent), HUBC (down 7.48 percent), FFBL (down 6.62 percent), HASCOL (down 6.53 percent) and CHCC (down 6.43 percent).
An analyst at JS Global Capital said Refineries (down 2.1 percent), Oil Marketing Companies (down 2.4 percent) and Power Generation & Distribution (down 2.5 percent) were among the worst performing sectors. On the other hand, E&Ps (up 2.9 percent) and Banks (up 0.7 percent) outperformed the KSE-100 by 2.3 percent and 0.1 percent, respectively.