KARACHI: Pakistan Stock Exchange remained under severe pressure on first three sessions of the outgoing week due to uncertainty over delay in IMF program and political unrest. However, healthy buying during the last two traded sessions supported the market to close on positive note on week-on-week basis.

The benchmark KSE-100 index increased by 629.24 points on week-on-week basis and crossed 41,000 psychological-level to close at 41,337.00 points.

Trading activities also improved during this week as average daily volumes on ready counter increased by 15.9 percent to 159.76 million shares as compared to previous week’s average of 137.89 million shares while average daily traded value on ready counter increased by 39.5 percent to Rs 7.31 billion against previous week’s average of 5.24 billion.

BRIndex100 gained 49.1 points during this week to close at 4,100.58 points with average daily turnover of 140.396 million shares.

BRIndex30 added 201.61 points on week-on-week basis to close at 14,505.99 points with average daily trading volumes of 98.243 million shares.

The foreign investors also remained net buyer of shares worth $263,107. Total market capitalization increased by Rs 36 billion during this week to Rs 6.356 trillion.

An analyst at AKD Securities said that the local currency depreciated heavily against the USD which leads to a negative sentiment in the market midweek. However, a positive market reaction was seen where the SBP hiked the policy rate by 300bps to fulfil the prior condition of IMF for the long awaited SLA to avert sovereign default and secure the $1.2billion disbursement. Furthermore, FX reserves inched up by $556million to $3.81billion as at 24 February, with the import cover remaining below a month.

Sector-wise, the top performing sectors were Miscellaneous (up 9.8 percent), commercial banks (up 3.8 percent) and woolen (up 2.3 percent), while the least favourite sectors were Tobacco (down 9.2 percent), Leather and Tanneries (down 8.9 percent) and Property (down 6.3 percent).

Stock-wise, top performers were PSEL (up 17.3 percent), UBL (up 8.3 percent), BAFL (up 6.7 percent), EPCL (up 6.1 percent) and MEBL (up 5.9 percent), while laggards were PGLC (down 20.1 percent), SML (down 14.3 percent), PAKT (down 10.7 percent), SRVI (down 9.2 percent) and JVDC (down 8.8 percent). Flow wise, insurance companies were the major buyers with net buy of $10.42million, followed by companies (net buy of $8.15million), while foreign investors were major sellers during the week, with a net sell of $9.48million. An analyst at JS Global Capital said that delay in the IMF program together with political uncertainty and preponed MPC meeting dragged down the KSE-100 through major part of the week before the index bounced back reacting to the 300bp rate hike by SBP.

Sector-wise, Banks (up 3.8 percent) were among top performers following favourable news regarding taxation rate for ‘ADRs’.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2023