Daily Times

KARACHI: With only three workdays outgoing week due to Ashura holidays, the KSE-100 index closed the week at 41,320 levels.

The market rallied by 1 percent week-on-week (WoW), where two major news, taking place on Tuesday, coincided to give impetus to market activity, said an equity analyst Ahmed Lakhani.

First, the government announced an increase in gas prices (10-143 percent), which, according to the analyst, was inevitable given that the government has been procuring gas at a higher price than the price it was being sold. The announced price increase was higher for higher consumption (for domestic consumers) slabs, making the increase more progressive in nature. At the same time, the price increase was more significant for industrial and commercial consumers, ranging from 30 percent to 57 percent, where the increase is particularly negative, for sectors with higher cost contribution from gas such as chemicals, glass & eramics etc, added Lakhani.

The price increase is a positive for Sui Companies as it will allow them to pass on the cost burden to end consumers, which has already reflected in market prices of Sui Southern Gas Companies (SSGC) that gained 4.7 percent WoW and Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Limited (SNGP) which gained 1.9 percent WoW.

The second major news of the week was Finance Minister Asad Umar presenting the highly awaited Finance Bill Amendments. A host of measures that impacted listed sectors on the local bourse included (1) removal of non-filer restriction on automobile purchase, increase in FED on imported cars of 1,800cc engine capacity from 10 percent to 20 percent and Rs 44 billion subsidy for Punjab based textiles.

Meanwhile, foreign investors remained net sellers during the week with net selling of US$12 million, compared to US$25 million in the previous week. Selling continued in the Banking (US$4mn) and Cement (US$3mn) sectors.

Published in Daily Times, September 21^st 2018.