The bourse started its week on a positive note on Monday as aggressive buying was witnessed in refineries, oil marketing companies and automobile assemblers where benchmark KSE-100 index closed 155 points higher at 40,420 points levels.
An equity analyst at Trust Securities said the benchmark index showed greenish behavior today and remained in the positive zone until the day ended. Macros were the major concern as the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) announced the arrival of another $1 billion deposit from Saudi Arabia on Friday.
Major developments were seen as Minister of State for Revenue has expressed the hope that a team of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) will remove Pakistan’s name from the gray list during its next visit to Islamabad as the government and departments concerned are working hard to meet the FATF requirements
Traded volumes remained dull with 126 million shares changing hands. Pakistan International Airlines (PIAA) gaining 12.5 percent, TRG gaining 1.4 percent and Fauji Fertiliser Limited (FFL) losing 2.4 percent led the volume with more than 29 million shares changing hands.
On the news front, the Islamic Development Bank (IDB) will provide $4.5 billion oil financing facility to Pakistan (US$1.5 billion worth of oil on deferred payment per year for 3 years). Interest was seen in the cements sector, where major players closed higher than their previous day close.
DG Khan Cement (DGKC) gaining 1.2 percent, Lucky Cement (LUCK) gaining 0.7 percent, Fauji Cement Company Limited (FCCL) gaining 0.6 percent and Pioneer Cement (PIOC) gaining 0.2 percent were the major movers of the mentioned sector.
Exploration And Prodcution (E&P) sector closed lower on back of a drop in crude oil prices down in the international market.
Winning streak continued in the Auto sector post favorable regulatory announcement in Economic Reforms Package (last week) and curtailment in illegal imports of used cars (earlier this month).
To support the oil refining sector, the government changed its earlier stance and imposed a complete ban on import of Furnace Oil (FO), allowing Attock Refinery Limited (ATRL) +5.0%, National Refinery Limited NRL PA +5.0% and Pakistan Refinery Limited PRL +5.0% to close at their respective upper circuits while Byco Petroleum BYCO PA +7.4% also garnered interest from momentum traders.
Murtaza Jafar, an analyst at Elixir Research, expects market to consolidate between 40,600 – 40,100 points level while investors await upcoming Monetary Policy (announcement likely on 31st January) for further direction.
Published in Daily Times, January 29th 2019.