KARACHI: Pakistan Stock Exchange witnessed mixed trend with low trading activities during the outgoing week ended on January 12, 2024 as the investors opted to remain on the sideline and avoided to take fresh position on their concerns over political noise in the country. The benchmark KSE-100 index gained 122.74 points on week-on-week basis and closed at 64,637.64 points.
Trading activities remained low as average daily volumes on ready counter decreased by 18.5 percent to 559.81 million shares during this week as compared to previous week’s average of 687.00 million shares while average daily traded value on the ready counter declined by 18.1 percent to Rs 57.07 billion during this week against previous week’s Rs 69.68 billion.
BRIndex100 closed almost flat at 6,642.98 points, slightly up by only 0.29 points during this week with average daily turnover of 495.358 million shares.
BRIndex30 lost Rs 34.27 points on week-on-week basis to close at 24,106.46 points with average daily trading volumes of 410.113 million shares.
Foreigners remained net buyers with net value of $1.879million during this week. Total market capitalization increased by Rs 80 billion to Rs 9.453 trillion.
An analyst at AKD Securities said that the week unfolded amidst political uncertainties and speculations of election delays, tempering market optimism; however, positive macroeconomic developments provided a counterbalance.
IMF’s approval of the second tranche of $700million on January 11, 2024, injected momentum, driving the KSE-100 index to close the week at 64,638points, up 0.19 percent WoW after an initial dip to 64,237 on the first day.
On the sectoralfront, E&P remained in the limelight during the week due to the sale of the RekoDiq stake to KSA, and amendments in petroleum policy have kept interest alive in the sector.
Sector-wise, Transport, Automobile Parts, and Synthetic and Rayon Companies were amongst the top performers, up 16.5 percent/15.4 percent/10.3 percent respectively. On the other hand, CE Mutual Funds, Leather & Tanneries, and Textile Weaving were amongst the worst performers with a decline of 8.8 percent/3.9 percent/3.4 percent.
Flow-wise, major net selling was recorded by Banks with a net sell of $4.9million. On the other hand, Companies absorbed most of the selling with a net buy of $6.4million.
Company-wise, top performers during the week were PSMC (up 24.1 percent), IBFL (up 13.6 percent), PIBTL (up 11.5 percent), INDU (up 11.0 percent) and MARI (up 9.0 percent), while top laggards were SML (down 9.4 percent), LOTCHEM (down 9.0 percent), HGFA (down 8.7 percent), FFBL (down 7.4 percent), CNYERGY (down 5.7 percent).
An analyst at JS Global Capital said that the KSE-100 index closed the week at 64,638, gaining 0.2 percent.
Sector-wise newsflow drove the market this week. E&P sector reported 3.5 percentYoY increase in oil production and 3.5 percentYoY decline in gas production for the month of December 2023. Auto sector sales of the 3-large assemblers were down 67 percentYoY while tractor sales grew more than double during December 2023.
Privatisation Commission (PC) board approved the transaction structure to sell a minimum of 51 percent stake in Pakistan International Airlines, this helped PIAA stay in the limelight.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2024