Despite concerns over the US presidential election results and uncertainty in global markets, Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) witnessed healthy buying in different sectors during the outgoing week ended on November 11, 2016.
Fresh buying by local investors and institutions supported the benchmark KSE-100 index to close at all time high level of 42,849.12 points with a net gain of 1007.56 points or 2.4 percent. However, foreign investors remained net sellers and withdrew $27.47 million from Pakistan's stock market during the week.
Trading activities at the ready counter also improved as the average daily trading volumes increased by 2.0 percent to 493.75 million as compared to previous week's average of 484.14 million shares. Average daily trading value surged by 15.3 percent to Rs 18.696 billion. Total market capitalisation increased by Rs 197 billion to Rs 8.666 trillion.
An analyst at Arif Habib Limited said that brushing off all the global political apprehensions, local bourse finished the week on a positive note, generating a positive return of 2.4 percent on week-on-week basis. Although the elections for President of the United States did manage to shake investors' confidence initially, as was the case for other regional peers, the market closed in the green throughout the week. "In our view, the mellow sentiments portrayed in the victory, speech of the President elect helped to restore confidence of investors globally and hence locally. Contribution to the index came from Banks 324 points, Cements 272 points, Fertilisers 91 points and OMCs contributing 60 points.
An analyst at AKD Securities said that the index gained 2.41 percent primarily led by cements and banks. "Though political tension eased off with PTI calling off its protest, political risk remains as Panama gate's next hearing is scheduled for November 15, 2016. However, we expect market to continue its rally led by heavyweight sectors like cements (on strong domestic demand) and banks (on expectations of early interest rate reversal)", he added.