KARACHI: Despite deadly terrorist attack on PSX Building on Monday morning, the Pakistan Stock Exchange witnessed bullish trend throughout the outgoing week on the back of local investors and institutional support.
BRIndex100 gained 129.72 points on week-on-week basis to close at 3,603.57 points. Average daily volumes stood at 203.158 million shares.
BRIndex30 increased by 766.38 points to close at 18344.63 points with average daily turnover of 143.016 million shares.
KSE-100 Index surged by 1,111.89 points or 3.3 percent on week-on-week basis and closed at 35,051.38 points. Trading activities also improved as average daily volumes on ready counter increased by 41.8 percent to 250.82 million shares as compared to previous week's average of 176.85 million shares. Average daily trading value increased by 45.7 percent to Rs 8.61 billion.
The foreign investors remained net sellers of equities worth $20.5 million during this week. Total market capitalization increased by Rs 220 billion to Rs 6.642 trillion.
"Marking the first positive return on FY basis in the past 3 years (FY20 KSE-100: up 1.5 percent on YoY) and holding gains in the remaining week, KSE-100 index closed the first week of FY21 at 35,051 points, up 3.28 percent on week-on-week basis with almost all sectors closing in green vindicating strong investor confidence", an analyst at AKD Securities said.
Attack on PSX in early trading hours on Monday turns out to be non-event for the market where successful passage of Finance Bill 2020 with additional incentives for the businesses (particularly cement sector, up 6.5 percent) and debarring of institutional investments in National Saving Schemes (NSS) expected to direct flows to equity market helped in sustaining the upward rally.
Scrip wise top gainers were TRG (up 21.4 percent), SHFA (up 15.0 percent), PTC (up 12.7 percent), KTML (up 10.2 percent) and KEL (up 10.0 percent), while laggards were JLICL (down 10.0 percent), IDYM (down 9.7 percent), JDWS (down 3.7 percent), BNWM (down 3.4 percent) and AGIL (down 3.1 percent).
An analyst at JS Global Capital said that the market remained firmly positive throughout the week, closing up by 3.3 percent. There was a significant surge in market activity as well, seen by average daily volumes (up 42 percent) and traded value (up 46 percent in USD terms).
The decision last week by SBP to cut the policy rate by another 100bps (at 7 percent now, down from a high of 13.25 percent) provided some cause to cheer for investors by increasing the relative attractiveness of equities over the other asset classes such as fixed income. This was augmented by a spate of news of FX inflows from sources such as WB, ADB and AIIB and recently China, with a large chunk reflecting in this week's FX reserves (up $1.2 billion WoW).
Moreover, headline inflation for June clocked-in at 8.59 percent YoY, taking FY20 CPI average to 10.74 percent YoY, in-line with SBP forecasts of below 11-12 percent.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2020