A flurry of news and election visibility pushed Karachi Stock Exchange towards all-time-high sessions which continued throughout the week ended on April 5. The benchmark-100 index gained 593 points or 3.3 percent to close at ever-highest level of 18,636.03.
Commenting on the market performance, Farrah Marwat, Head of JS Global said Karachi stock market closed on positive note with 39 percent WoW higher average trading volumes of 210 million shares.
While, the news was not all good, the market took its lead from heightened visibility on upcoming elections and a likely end to the lingering political stalemate, as the caretaker cabinet was formed and the ECP started scrutiny of election candidates, she said.
"With 1Q2013 in the bag, buoyant result expectations - particularly for cement and fertilisers - also lifted market sentiments. Meanwhile, with de-listing of Unilever Pakistan agreed upon at Rs15,000/sh, the consumer sector took its place in the sun this week, particularly EFOODS (13.8 percent WoW)," she said.
Farrah said that sentiments were boosted early in the week by soft inflation numbers; where Mar-13 CPI came in at a 68-mth low of 6.57 percent (9MFY13 CPI: 7.98 percent). Also positive was the government's decision to hike OMC margins by 6-13 percent, data release on Mar-13 cement sales, which rose 3 percent YoY and 27 percent MoM to an all-time monthly high of 3.33mn tons, a reported ~51 percent YoY spike in Mar-13 urea sales, she added.
On the negative front, she said Competition Commission of Pakistan (CCP) slapped a massive Rs8.65bn penalty on fertiliser giants FFC and ENGRO for 'unreasonable' urea price hikes, government admitted to slippage of its fiscal deficit target (6.5-8.0 percent of GDP range being touted in media reports) and the caretaker Prime Minister ruled out his government signing onto an IMF programme, leaving this crucial step to the new government, she added.
Meanwhile, with another US $106mn IMF re-payment honoured this week, foreign exchange reserves fell by US $168mn to US $12.2bn, Farrah Marwat commented.
Weekly average volume witnessed increase of 39.1 percent to 210.43 million shares compared to 151.25 million a week earlier. Market capitalisation also remained up by 3.2 percent to Rs4.587 trillion from Rs4.446 trillion.
Average daily value witnessed higher trend. It increased by 83.2 percent to close at Rs7.78 billion compared to Rs4.25 billion recorded during the previous trading-week.
Karachi Stock Exchange witnessed higher-trend on the first day of new week as the benchmark-100 share index closed at all-time-high-level of 18,272.11. It gained 228.80 points or 1.27 percent.
Led by cement sector, KSE-100 share index closed at fresh all-time-high of 18,345.74. The index gained 73.63 points or 0.40 percent on Tuesday.
Karachi share market witnessed an all-time high trend on third consecutive day as the benchmark-100 index gained 230.14 points or 1.25 percent to close at 18,575.88 points against 18,345.74 points.
All-time-high trend continued at KSE on Thursday as the benchmark-100 share index gained 37.56 points or 0.20 percent to close at 18,613.44 points against 18,575.88 points.
On Friday, the Karachi stock market ended the week on an all-time-high as the benchmark-100 share index gained 22.59 points or 0.12 percent to breach psychological level of 18,636.03 points as compared to 18,613.44 points.