KARACHI: Pakistan Stock Exchange witnessed bullish trend and hit new highest ever level during the outgoing week ended on May 17, 2024 on the back of investor strong interest on expectations over more foreign inflows, new IMF program and improving macro-economic indicators.
The benchmark KSE-100 index surged by 2,256.85 points on week-on-week basis and crossed 75,000 historic level to close at new highest ever level of 75,342.35 points.
Trading activities however remained low as average daily volumes on ready counter decreased by 22.7 percent to 554.51 million shares during this week as compared to previous week’s average of 717.34 million shares while average daily traded value on the ready counter declined by 10.4 percent to Rs 21.93 billion during this week against previous week’s Rs 24.46 billion.
BRIndex100 soared by 197.83 points during this week to close at 7,871.33 points with average daily turnover of 487.146 million shares.
BRIndex30 increased by 138.68 points on week-on-week basis to close at 25,595.62 points with 314.182 million shares.
The foreign investors also remained net buyers of shares worth $14.943 million during this week. Total market capitalization increased by Rs 255 billion during this week to Rs 10.133 trillion.
“The pre-budget rally continues throughout the week with KSE-100 index closing at its historic high, as the bears failed to seize control at every turn and investor’s confidence remained high, driving the market to sustained gains”, an analyst at AKD Securities said.
The market’s bullish momentum is mainly attributed to recent talks with the IMF proceeding smoothly, without any hiccups. Further, SPI weekly inflation is consistently on downward trend from the past five weeks, indicating a tapering down of CPI figures for the ongoing month. Concurrently, MS and HSD fuel prices have decreased by PkR15.39/7.88 per liter, respectively, in the last fortnightly review. Additionally, Yields in the mid-week T-Bill auction also declined slightly (6-49bps). Of significant importance, current account for April’24 posted another surplus of $491million, resulting in lowered 10MFY24’s deficit of mere $202million.
With regards to sector performance, automobile parts & accessories, engineering, synthetic & rayon, real estate investment trust and woolen were amongst the top performers, up 11.8 percent/8.31 percent/6.95 percent/5.67 percent and 5.63 percent WoW respectively. On the other hand, cable & electrical goods, close-end mutual fund, transport, tobacco and power generation & distribution were amongst the worst performers with a weekly decline of 3.53 percent/2.13 percent/2.11 percent/1.13 percent and 0.55 percent, respectively.
Flow wise, major net selling was recorded by banks/DFI with a net sell of $9.85 million. On the other hand, Foreigners absorbed most of the selling with a net buy of $14.94million.
Company-wise, top performers during the week were THALL (up 33.7 percent), INIL (up 16.1 percent), PSX (up 14.7 percent), PKGP (up 13.1 percent), (up 11.7 percent), while top laggards were PAEL (down 6.4 percent), PTC (down 5.1 percent), AGP (down 4.1 percent) and KEL (down 4.0 percent), NPL (down 3.8 percent).
An analyst at JS Global Capital said that the KSE-100 index continued its uptrend this week and broke the barrier of 75,000.
The KSE-100 index is up 21 percent CY24TD with banks, fertilizer and E&P sectors being key contributors to the rally.
Banks, E&P and Fertilizers continued to attract foreign interest. MSCI added NBP in its frontier market index (MSCI FM), taking the total number of stocks from Pakistan to 77. There was no change in the MSCI small cap index.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2024