KARACHI: The stock market likely to stay positive during next week due to resumption of business activities after ease in lockdown.
Analysts at Arif Habib Limited said that the market to remain positive as companies resume operations following easing of the lockdown which is helping revive sentiment in the bourse.
Moreover a growth focused budget is expected which should also help keep confidence upbeat.
The benchmark KSE-100 index of Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) is currently trading at a PER of 7.1x (2020) compared to Asia Pac regional average of 11.9x and while offering DY of ~8.3 percent versus ~3.0 percent offered by the region.
This week was a two-day trading week following the Eid holidays. Investors are expecting the upcoming budget to be focused upon measures to uplift the economy.
However stringent revenue targets are likely to be a major deterrent. That said, news coming in this week has been suggestive of no new additional taxation measures. The index went up by 95 points WoW to settle at 33,931 points.
Sector-wise positive contributions came from i) Technology & Communication (+46pts), ii) Cement (+43pts), and iii) Pharmaceuticals (+39pts) while negative contributions came from Fertilizers (-43pts), and Commercial Banks (-39pts). Scrip-wise positive contributions were led by TRG (+28pts), OGDC (+26pts), and LUCK (+23pts) while ENGRO (-49pts) and UBL (-30pts) remained laggards.
Foreign offloading during the week arrived at USD 2.42 million compared to a net sell of USD 8.77 million last week.
Selling was witnessed in Fertilizer (USD 2.54 million), Textile Composite (USD 1.81 million) and Banks (USD 1.01 million).
On the domestic front, Individual accumulated stocks worth USD 3.93 million, while buying by Broker Proprietary Trading arrived at USD 0.62 million.
Average volumes settled at 214 million shares (up by 4 percent WoW) while average value traded clocked-in at USD 54 million (up by 13 percent WoW).
