KARACHI: The stock market may move in positive territory next week owing to narrow trade deficit and stable foreign exchange reserves.
Analysts at Arif Habib Limited said that the market to be positive during the coming week.
“With the trade deficit narrowing and foreign reserves stabilizing investor sentiment is likely to be positive,” they added.
KSE-100 index commenced on a negative note this week, with SBP forecasting the inflation to remain high for the next two years.
Moreover the ADB projected a slowdown in the economy which kept the sentiment weak. However, the recent improvement on the macro-economic front cushioned the dip and positive news flow from the US regarding the Kashmir issue uplifted sentiments on Friday. The index closed at 32,070 points (-40 points WoW).
Sector-wise negative contributions came from i) Commercial Banks (122 points), ii) Power Generation & Distribution (24 points), iii) Chemical (21 points), iv) Pharmaceuticals (14 points), and v) Automobile Parts & Accessories (13 points). Scrip-wise negative contributions were led by HBL (67 points), HUBC (56 points), UBL (29 points), SEARL (27 points) and NBP (23 points).
Foreign selling was witnessed this week clocking-in at USD 8.8 million compared to a net buy of USD 7.8 million last week. Selling was witnessed in Cement (USD 2.4 million) and Commercial Banks (USD 2.2 million).
On the domestic front, major selling was reported by Banks/DFIs (USD 6.7 million) and Broker Proprietary Trading (USD 6.2mn). Average Volumes settled at 108 million shares (down by 12 percent WoW) while average value traded clocked-in at USD 25 million (down by 24 percent WoW).
