KARACHI: Pakistan stocks will witness only one day trading during next week due to four-day holidays announced by the government for Eid ul Fitr.
Analysts at Arif Habib Limited said that next week trading will only be witnessed on one day given Eid holidays.
Once the market resumes, we believe stocks will take account of various key event next month such as monetary policy meeting and further update on technical level talks with IMF.
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Whereas the current visit of the prime minister to Saudi can also lead to some material announcement.
The benchmark KSE-100 index of Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) is currently trading at a PER of 4.8x (2022) compared to Asia Pacific regional average of 12.6x while offering a dividend yield of 8.6 per cent versus 2.7 per cent offered by the region.
In the week commencing April 25, 2022, the index opened green as the investors welcomed better than expected corporate results along with successful agreement with IMF to extend the stalled bailout programme by up to one year and potentially increase the loan size to $8 billion.
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Albeit the momentum could not be maintained mid-week amid concerns over further monetary tightening, given the KIBOR touched it’s 13 years high which signaled another interest rate hike.
This, together with Rs3.2 trillion fiscal deficit posted during July-March 2022, and widened current account deficit, dented the investors’ confidence and thereby caused the bourse to close in red settling at 45,249 points, down 304 points (-0.67 per cent WoW).
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Sector-wise negative contributions came from i) Cement (117 points), ii) Technology & Communication (99 points), iii) Oil & Gas Exploration Companies (69 points), iv) Power Generation & Distribution (68 points), and v) Engineering (33 points).
Whereas, sectors which contributed positively were i) Commercial Banks (84 points), ii) Fertilizer (61 points), iii) Chemical (45 points), iv) Automobile Assembler (8 points), and v) Leather & Tanneries (2 points).
Scrip-wise negative contributors were TRG (67 points), HUBC (55 points), LUCK (51 points), PPL (38 points) and FFC (28 points). Meanwhile, scrip-wise positive contribution came from EFERT (69 points), ENGRO (40 points), LOTCHEM (37 points), EPCL (37 points), and MCB (30 points).
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Foreign buying was witnessed this week, clocking-in at USD 3.17 million compared to a net sell of $0.97 million last week. Major buying was witnessed in Technology & Communication (USD 1.64 million) and Textile Composite (USD 1.01 million).
On the local front, selling was reported by Insurance Companies (USD 6.71 million) followed by Mutual Funds (USD 4.87 million). Average volumes clocked-in at 257 million shares (up by 14 per cent WoW) while average value traded settled at USD 36 million (down by 10 per cent WoW).
