Daily Times

Stocks fell flat on Monday as investors tread cautiously ahead of upcoming Asia-Pacific Group (APG) meeting, which is to be held on 15th and 16th September. In a choppy session witnessed on the first trading day of the week, Pakistan Stock Exchange benchmark Kse-100 index closed at 42,531.31 index level.

During the session, the index remained range bound, amid lack of investors’ interest as the results from the APG meeting will drive the future course of the market sentiments. In the upcoming meeting the APG will review Pakistan’s measures taken against money laundering, which will be forwarded to financial watchdog Financial Action Task Force. The meeting comes at a time when Pakistan has to submit a compliance report to FATF on September 30th.

The market, however, witnessed some early gains during the day after State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) reveled that

Remittances to the country rose to $2.095 billion in August, depicting a year-on-year growth of 24.4pc when compared with August 2019. According to the SBP, workers’ remittances have now remained above $2 billion for the third month in a row. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Imran Khan said on Monday remittances received by the country have surged by 31% during the first two months of the fiscal year as compared to the same period last year.

On the day, KSE-100 Index, recorded its intraday high at 42,720.98 after gaining 190.31 points and however touched an intraday low at 42,367.81 after losing 162.86 points to selling pressure. The Selling pressure was primarily witnesses in cements, exploration & production, steel and refinery sectors.

The index volumes receded from 309.72 million shares recorded in the previous session to 289.62 million shares, while the overall market volumes also decreased from 526.19 million shares recorded in the previous session to 509.52 million shares.

The volume chart was led by Hascol Petroleum Limited followed by Pakistan International Bulk Terminal Limited and Fauji Foods Limited. The scrips exchanged 67.08 million, 42.94 million and 29.88 million shares, respectively.

Sectors which dented the index were Oil & Gas Exploration Companies with 14 points, Technology & Communication with 14 points, Automobile Assembler with 9 points, Refinery with 7 points and Cement with 7 points. Among the scrips, most points taken off the index was by Pakistan Petroleum Limited which stripped the index of 23 points followed by DG Khan Cement with 16 points, K-Electric Limited with 9 points, Systems Limited with 8 points and Sui Northern Gas Pipeline Limited with 8 points.

However, sectors kept index at green zone by the session closing were Commercial Banks with 19 points, Oil & Gas Marketing Companies with 17 points, Power Generation & Distribution with 12 points, Transport with 8 points and Chemical with 5 points. Among the scrips, most points added to the index was by Pakistan State Oil which contributed 17 points followed by Habib Bank Limited with 17 points, Hub Power Company Limited with 16 points, Muslim Commercial Bank with 15 points and Hascol Petroleum Limited with 12 points.

Global markets: Global stocks continue to make recovery following boost from news that Phase III trials of AstraZeneca’s coronavirus vaccine have resumed in the U.K. after trials were halted last week over safety concerns. The news raises hope that one of the leading candidates in the global race to develop a vaccine which can stem the pandemic is back on track.

However, investors have largely withdrawn from the European markets, as investors monitored tense negotiations between the U.K. and the European Union over Brexit. U.K. and the EU are currently trying to reach a trade agreement before the end of the transition period on December 31, with the U.K. set to go onto World Trade Organization rules if no agreement is reached.

In Asia, stocks advanced across the board with shares in South Korea leading the gains, lifting benchmark index Kospi by 1.3% on the day to 2,427.91. While, In Japan, the Nikkei 225 rose 0.65% to close at 23,559.30, following Shares of Japan’s SoftBank Group soaring over 8% on Monday following an announcement that the firm is set to sell U.K. chip designer Arm to U.S. chip firm Nvidia. The chipmaker giant has agreed to buy Arm Holdings, a designer of chips for mobile phones, from SoftBank in a deal worth $40 billion.

Among other major bourses, Chinese stocks also edged higher by their close, with the Shanghai composite closing 0.57% higher to about 3,278.81 while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index also rose 0.56%, by day’s closing.

In Europe, markets traded around the flat line with banking stock with travel and leisure stocks gaining 1.3%, while the health care sector dropped 0.6%. Among the major indexes, CAC-40 in France traded in the green zone, while UK’s FTSE-100 and Germany’s DAX closed fractionally lower.

In U.S, stocks continue to make recovery for the fourth consecutive session, which was led by tech stocks, as the market tried to recover from its first back-to-back weekly declines in months.

During the early trading, Dow Jones Industrial Average traded 350 points higher, while the S&P 500 was trading 1.6% higher. The tech heavy Nasdaq Composite was advancing by over 2%.