Weekly Review: Investors likely cautious ahead of budget

Weekly Review: Investors likely cautious ahead of budget

KARACHI: The present government is presenting its first budget just after the Eid holidays and investors likely to take a cautious stance, analysts said.

Analysts at Arif Habib Limited said that anticipation of Market Support Funds attracted positive sentiments alongside high volumes.

The four day week commenced on a negative note amid lack of clarity over the funds, but, later during the week bulls took over after two support funds were approved by ECC worth Rs20 billion. Moreover, Pak Rupee gained some strength against the greenback, which further kept the sentiment positive. The market closed at 35,974 points, gaining 270 points.

Positive sector-wise contributions came from i) Commercial Banks (174 pts), ii) Oil & Gas Marketing Companies (120 pts), iii) Automobile Assembler (53 pts), iv) Oil & Gas Exploration Companies (41 pts) and v) Tobacco (34 pts). Whereas, sectors that contributed negatively include i) Fertilizers (93 pts) and ii) Textile Composite (61 pts). Scrip-wise positive contributions came from UBL (67 pts), BAHL (60 pts), LUCK (58 pts) and PSO (44 pts). Whereas, negative scrip-wise contributions came from FFC (66 pts), HBL (65 pts), and NML (44 pts).

Foreign selling was witnessed this week clocking-in at USD 2.95mn compared to a net buy of USD 0.02mn last week. Selling was witnessed in Exploration & Production (USD 5.9mn) and Fertilizer (USD 0.7mn). On the domestic front, major buying was reported by Banks / DFIs (USD 5.2mn) and Broker Proprietary Trading (USD 3.4mn). Average Volumes settled at 165mn shares (down by 8% WoW) while value traded clocked in at USD 48mn (up by 22% WoW).