KARACHI: Pakistan Stock Exchange witnessed bullish trend during the outgoing week ended on May 10, 2024 due to fresh buying on expectations of more foreign inflows, new IMF program and improving economic indicators.
The benchmark KSE-100 index surged by 1,183.41 points on week-on-week basis and closed at new highest ever level of 73,085.50 points.
Trading activities however remained low as average daily volumes on ready counter decreased by 20.7 percent to 515.75 million shares during this week as compared to previous week’s average of 650.04 million shares while average daily traded value on the ready counter declined by 8.3 percent to Rs 23.90 billion during this week against previous week’s Rs 26.07 billion.
BRIndex100 added 107.07 points during this week to close at 7,673.50 points with average daily turnover of 643.707 million shares.
BRIndex30 increased by 671.09 points on week-on-week basis to close at 25,456.94 points with average daily trading volumes of 462.469 million shares.
The foreign investors also remained net buyers of shares worth $2.734 billion. Total market capitalization however declined by Rs 220 billion to stand at Rs 9.797 trillion.
An analyst at AKD Securities said that the market remained positive over the outgoing week, with the benchmark KSE-100 index challenging its highs and closing the week above 73,000 points (73,086points), posting weekly gains of 1,183points/1.65 percent.
Overall, positivity was driven by progress made with IMF, as their team is scheduled to visit the country this month for finalizing the fund size of next EFF program and setting reform targets before the FY25 budget. Additionally, the investment story from KSA remains prominent, with a 50-member team having visited the country, and KSA’s crown prince set to visit shortly.
On the macroeconomic front, worker remittances in April 2024 remained robust at $2.8billion (up 28 percent YoY), attributed to the Eid impact and reduced gap between interbank and open exchange rates. Moreover, weekly inflation has been on a downward trend for the past three weeks, and overall monthly CPI for May’24 is expected below the 15 percent mark, resulting in real interest rates exceeding 700bps.
Sector-wise, leather & tanneries, pharmaceuticals, cable & electrical goods were amongst the top performers, up 18.8 percent/18.3 percent/16.3 percent WoW respectively. On the other hand, synthetic & rayon, fertilizer, and leasing companies were amongst the worst performers with a decline of 8.0 percent/4.6 percent/3.9 percent WoW.
Flow wise, major net selling was recorded by other organizations with a net sell of $4.7 million. On the other hand, Foreigners absorbed most of the selling with a net buy of $2.7million.
Company-wise, top performers during the week were GLAXO (up 32.9 percent), SRVI (up 27.6 percent), CEPB (up 24.4 percent), PAEL (up 23.9 percent) and HINOON (up 20.1 percent), while top laggards were IBFL (down 10.0 percent), PGLC (down 8.9 percent), EFERT (down 6.3 percent), FATIMA (down 5.6 percent) and FFBL (down 4.6 percent).
An analyst at JS Global Capital said that the KSE-100 index crossed 73,000 mark this week, reflecting WoW return of 1.6 percent.
Delegations from Saudi Arabia and Qatar met with Pakistani government officials this week to boost trade ties and investment in Pakistan. Government continued to aim at improving the process-time for privatization of state-owned enterprises. In this regard, privatisation division (PD) chalked down strategy for the next 5-year privatization program. PD also sought cabinet approval to transfer 322 million shares of OGDC to Pak Sovereign Wealth Fund.
Investor confidence was further boosted by final disbursement of $1.1billion by IMF. Resultantly SBP foreign exchange reserves level crossed $9.0 billion, taking import cover to 27-month high of 2.1x.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2024