Positive trend witnessed

Pakistan Stock Exchange witnessed positive trend during the four-day outgoing week ended April 30, 2020 on the back of local investors and institutional support.

BRIndex100 gained 146.85 points on week-on-week basis to close at 3,516.34 points. Average daily trading volumes stood at 163.412 million shares.

BRIndex30 increased by 1224.32 points to close at 18,211.91 points with average daily turnover of 122.523 million shares.

KSE-100 index surged by 1260.81 points or 3.8 percent on week-on-week basis and closed at 34,111.64 points. Trading activities however remained thin as average daily volumes on ready counter decreased by 39.6 percent to 178.56 million shares as compared to previous week's average of 295.82 million shares. Average daily trading value declined by Rs 40.3 percent to Rs 7.82 billion.

The foreign investors remained on the selling side and withdrew $11.6 million from the local capital market during this week. Total market capitalization increased by Rs 184 billion to Rs 6.376 trillion. "After starting the week off on the wrong foot (KSE-100 declined by 1.5 percent on first trading day of the week), the market witnessed a stellar performance throughout the remaining three days, providing a perfect closing to the month where 16.7 percent gain during April 2020 stands to be the highest gain in April for the last decade at least," an analyst at AKD Securities said.

He said various factors contributed to the cause as increasing oil prices (WTI/Brent increased by 2.7/22.1 percent during the week) provided much needed support to the oil and gas sector which remained one of the top performing sectors for the week. On the other hand, expectations of further monetary easing kept cyclical sectors like Cement and Engineering into the limelight, providing more fuel to the market.

Sectors driving returns included Automobile parts and accessories (up 10.5 percent), Oil and gas exploration (up 10.3 percent), Power (up 6.7 percent) while Tobacco (down 6.2 percent) and Commercial Banks (down 0.4 percent) were in the red. Top gainers during the outgoing week were ISL (up 13.9 percent), NATF (up 13.8 percent), HUBC (up 12.3 percent) and NML (up 11.7 percent), whereas laggards during the week were IDYM (down 12.8 percent), SCBPL (down 9.4 percent) and BAFL (down 7.3 percent).

An analyst at JS Global Capital said that the four trading days saw the KSE-100 index of the PSX gain 3.8 percent on week-on-week basis as it closed at 34,111 level. However, investors' participation remained dull due to Ramazan; daily traded volumes declined by 40 percent.

Within sectors, E&Ps and Engineering outperformed the index while Commercial Banks underperformed. The week saw some recovery in international crude oil prices which may have supported the index heavyweight E&P sector.