KARACHI: Pakistan Stock Exchange remained under pressure during the early part of the week due to selling however strong financial results mainly in E&P sector stocks invited healthy buying that supported the market to recover its losses and to close on positive note on week-on-week basis.
The benchmark KSE-100 index increased by 343.61 points on week-on-week basis and crossed 78,000 psychological level to close at 78,569.59 points.
Trading activities also improved as average daily volumes on ready counter increased by 37.7 percent to 492.62 million shares during this week as compared to previous week’s average of 357.85 million shares while average daily traded value on the ready counter increased by 21.3 percent to Rs 20.62 billion against previous week’s Rs 17.00 billion.
BRIndex100 closed at 8,300.91 points, down 14.93 points during this week with average daily turnover of 409.048 million shares.
BRIndex30 gained 100.24 points on week-on-week basis to close at 25,998.45 points with average daily trading volumes of 266.632 million shares.
The foreign investors also remained net buyers of shares worth $1.411 million during this week. Total market capitalization increased by Rs 118 billion during this week to Rs 10.491 trillion.
An analyst at AKD Securities said that the KSE-100 Index exhibited mixed momentum throughout the week, ultimately closing with a modest weekly gain of 0.4 percent WoW at 78,570points.
The week began on a turbulent note, primarily due to concerns about global markets following Japan’s interest rate hike. However, a rebound in the E&P sector, spurred by a surprising payout from MARI, revitalized market sentiment in the last two sessions. Investor confidence was further strengthened by debt rollover commitments during the week, aligning with IMF prerequisites ahead of the Executive Board meeting expected later this month. Additionally, T-bill yields dropped by 50-54 bps in the latest auction on Wednesday, signalling investor anticipation of rapid rate cuts in upcoming MPC meetings. This decline in T-bill yields consequently led to KIBOR rates hitting 18-month lows.
Sector-wise, Woollen, Textile Weaving, and Textile Spinning were amongst the top performers, up 16.9 percent/6.7 percent/5.3 percent, respectively. On the other hand, vanaspati & allied industries, property, and fertilizer were amongst the worst performers with a decline of 3.9 percent/2.7 percent/2.5 percent.
Flow wise, major net selling was recorded by Mutual Funds with a net sell of $6.0million. On the other hand, Individuals absorbed most of the selling with a net buy of $5.5million.
Company-wise, top performers during the week were YOUW (up 38.2 percent), BNWM (up 28.5 percent), MARI (up 20.1percent), SNGP (up 11.0 percent) and APL (up 7.8 percent), while top laggards were PIBTL (down 7.9 percent), AKBL (down 7.8 percent), BAHL (down 6.3 percent), FFC (down 6.0 percent) and ATRL (down 4.7 percent).
An analyst at JS Global Capital said that the KSE-100 index experienced a subdued performance during the early part of this week, largely due to ongoing global uncertainties and Bank of Japan surprisingly raising interest rates by 15bps which had a spill over effect on KSE-100 index.
However, it rebounded strongly in the latter half of the week, driven by a strong results in Oil & Gas Exploration Sector, which propelled the market to a positive close with a 0.4 percent WoW gain.
The company with the strong result from the oil & gas exploration sector was Mari Petroleum (MARI), which featured higher payouts and 800 percent bonus share issue. Additionally, news about the anticipated divestment of profitable entities like OGDC and PPL by the Government to Global Capable Companies (GCC) further energized the sector.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2024