KARACHI: The stock market likely to stay positive in the upcoming week owing to falling global commodity prices and ease in coronavirus cases.

Analysts at Arif Habib Limited. said that the market to remain positive in the upcoming week attributable to crashing global commodity prices and the ongoing result season which will keep specific companies under limelight.

On the other hand, decline in infection ratio of the novel coronavirus in Pakistan and slowdown in global oil prices would release pressure from external account.

The benchmark KSE-100 index of Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) is currently trading at a PER of 6.7x (2021) compared to Asia Pac regional average of 16.1x while offering a dividend yield of 6.6 per cent versus 2.4 per cent offered by the region.

This week trading activity commenced on a negative note amid: i) Geopolitical uncertainty given crisis in Afghanistan and its potential spill over in Pakistan, ii) Closure of borders that connects trade activity with Afghanistan, and iii) less trading days in the week owed to religious activity.

However, trading activity picked pace on the back of peaceful takeover Kabul falls, ii) decline in international commodity prices, iii) Reopening of borders with Afghanistan as a result trading activity witnessed a drastic jump, and iv) slowdown in Covid-19 infection ratio.

As a result, the KSE-100 index closed at 47,600 points, up by 430 points or 0.91 per cent WoW.    

Contribution to the upside was led by i) Cements (151 points), ii) Commercial Banks (86 points), iii) Power Generation and Distribution (72 points), iv) Oil and Gas Marketing Companies (65 points), and v) Fertilizer (41 points). Scrip-wise major gainers were MEBL (73 points), HUBC (62 points), PSO (57 points), DGKC (40 points), and MLCF (36 points). Whereas, scrip-wise major losers were PPL (18 points), KTML (16 points), NESTLE (11 points), PSEL (11 points) and MARI (10 points).  

Foreigners offloaded stocks worth of USD 10.82 million compared to a net buy of USD 3.95 million last week. Major selling was witnessed in All Other Sectors (USD 10.79 million) and Cements (USD 2.53 million). On the local front, buying was reported by Companies (USD 7.78 million) followed by Mutual Funds (USD 5.87 million). That said, average daily volumes and traded value for the outgoing week were down by 13 per cent and 4 per cent to 266 million shares and USD 70 million, respectively.

KARACHI: The stock market gained 341 points on Friday as investors gained confidence due to stability in Afghanistan. The benchmark KSE-100 index of Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) closed at 47,600 points as against last trading on August 17, 2021 at 47,258 points.

Analysts at Arif Habib Limited said that the market added another 341 points during the session today, after gaining traction earlier in the week.

Relatively stability in Afghanistan helped investors gain confidence, especially the decision to drop custom duties on different items that will particularly improve dispatches for Cement sector.

Today’s session was a reflection of that, with cement, Banks, steel, refinery, fertilizer and O&GMCs sectors contributing positively to the index.

On the flip side, E&P sector regressed due to significant drop in international crude oil prices witnessed in the past couple of days when PSX was off. Among scrips, GGL topped the volumes with 21.6 million shares, followed by BYCO (18.8 million) and TPL (10.4 million).

Sectors contributing to the performance include Cement (+182 points), Banks (+73 points), O&GMCs (+39 points), Engineering (+27 points) and Fertilizer (+15 points).

Volumes increased from 246 million shares to 299.1 million shares (+22 per cent DoD). Average traded value also increased by 14 per cent to reach US$ 80 million as against US$ 70 million.

Stocks that contributed significantly to the volumes include GG, BYCO, TPL, SILK and WTL, which formed 23 per cent of total volumes.

Stocks that contributed positively to the index include MEBL (+64 points), DGKC (+39 points), CHCC (+32 points), LUCK (+31 points) and PSO (+31 points). Stocks that contributed negatively include PSEL (-10 points), MARI (-9 points), TRG (-9 points), OGDC (-7 points) and NESTLE (-7 points).