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.
