Bulls again on driving seat

Pakistan Stock Exchange recovered some of its losses during the outgoing week ended on April 10, 2020 on the back of fresh buying by local investors and institutional support.

BRIndex100 gained 42.45 points on week-on-week basis to close at 3,300.07 points. Average daily volumes stood at 175.875 million shares.

BRIndex30 increased by 463.90 points to close at 16,766.53 points with average daily turnover of 136.117 million shares.

KSE-100 Index surged by 411.42 points on week-on-week basis and closed at 32,033.21 points. Trading activities remained low as average daily volumes on ready counter decreased by 18.2 percent to 186.14 million shares as compared to previous week's average of 227.68 million shares. Average daily trading value declined by 7.9 percent and stood at Rs 6.99 billion. Total market capitalization increased by Rs 39 billion to Rs 6.055 trillion.

"Mimicking international equity benchmarks, the market continued to shrug off major headline risks in the form rising infections (1893 new cases over the past week) and potential economic ramifications of the government-mandated lockdowns", an analyst at AKD Securities said. The KSE-100 index gained 1.30 percent on week-on-week basis (up 411 points) to close the week at 32,033 points.

Amongst the major sectors, E&Ps remained in the limelight in the run up to OPEC+ alliance emergency meeting on production cuts, gaining 3.5 percent on WoW. Cements gained on the announcement of the PM construction package, which granted the status of an "industry" to the construction sector besides offering tax and regulatory concessions (i.e. amnesty on new real estate investment until December 2020, a fixed-rate regime for builders and rationalization of provincial taxes, etc).

Amongst the mainboard, top gainers during the week were PIOC (up 15.2 percent), CHCC (up 12.9 percent), TRG (up 12.2 percent), DGKC (up 12.1 percent), PKGS (up 11.9 percent), while ANL (down 11.1 percent), PSMC (down 8.5 percent), HCAR (down 7.9 percent), GATM (down 6.8 percent) and NBP (down 6.4 percent) were the major laggards.

An analyst at JS Global Capital said that following a turbulent week, the KSE-100 Index closed at 32,033 level, gaining 1.3 percent over the week. Foreign investors remained net sellers across the board with aggressive selling seen particularly in the banking sector. Following the Prime Minister's announcement of the construction package last Friday, the Cement sector saw positive movement with 3 of the top 10 performing stocks being from the said sector. Moreover, the E&P sector outperformed the benchmark index by 2.2 percent as it rose on anticipation of positive results from the meeting of major oil producing nations. Furthermore, after declining for four consecutive weeks, foreign reserves held with the SBP stood at $10.7 billion on April 3, 2020. In a significant development, news reports have highlight that the third tranche worth $450 million under the EFF facility may be delayed as the IMF focuses on Pakistan's request for $1.4 billion to combat Covid-19. Furthermore, the FATF has granted a 5-month grace period to Pakistan to submit its performance report on the remaining benchmarks.