Daily Times

Pakistan stock exchange benchmark Kse-100 index continues its recovery course on the last trading day of the week. On Friday, the index climbed 441.81 points, recording an overall accumulation of over 2,261 points since touching the bottom point on October 6th, 2020, to clock at 40,798.43 index level.

On Friday, market continued its uphill rally right from the beginning, abandoning weeks of consistent panic selling. Stocks witnessed fresh buying spree ahead of earnings season, as value hunters had embarked upon cherry picking oversold equities at attractive rates. Moreover, the market sentiments were swayed by improvement in international oil prices due to demand optimism as International Oil prices soared above $43/barrel. During the day, Exploration & Production sector led major buying activity, while oil & gas marketing, banking stocks also contributed to the buying activity. Meanwhile, investors digest recent appreciation of Pakistan rupee against Dollars, in the interbank foreign exchange market.

According to the report issued by BMA capital Management Limited, the index was lifted on the back of by all-time high cement dispatches (5.21 Mn tonnes,?22% YoY) for the month of September. In addition to this, SBP in its circular advised banks to develop time bound “Action Plan” with quarterly financing sub-targets for financing to housing and construction of buildings. The report also added, failure to meet the assigned target will result in higher CRR requirement in the next quarter. This further improved optimism in the cement sector. As a result, the sector outperformed the benchmark index by 2.45% to yield 4.27% on WoW.

During the day the index remained in the green zone and recorded its intra-day high at 40,830.22 after gaining 476.60 points. The index volumes slightly decreased from 270.11 million shares recorded in the previous session to 240.64 million shares, while the overall market volumes also decreased from 431.96 million shares from the previous session to 358.82 million shares.

The volume chart was led by Hascol Petroleum Limited, followed by Unity Foods Limited and TRG Pakistan Limited. The scrips exchanged 53.96 million, 35 million and 21.47 million shares, respectively.

Sectors which lifted the index were Commercial Banks with 136 points, Oil & Gas Exploration Companies with 88 points, Power Generation & Distribution with 44 points, Textile Composite with 35 points and Automobile Assembler with 35 points. Among the scrips, most points added to the index was by Habib Ban Limoited which contributed 64 points followed by Hub Power Company Limited with 47 points, Oil & Gas Development Company Limited with 31 points, Pakistan Petroleum Limited with 29 points and TRG Pakistan Limited with 27 points.

However, sectors which continued to add pressure on the index were Tobacco with 7 points, Oil & Gas Marketing Companies with 4 points, Pharmaceuticals with 3 points, Refinery with 2 points and Engineering with 1 points. Among the scrips, most points taken off the index was by Tobacco Company Limited which stripped the index of 14 points followed by Hascol Petroleum Limited with 12 points, K-Electric Limited with 6 points, NESTLE with 5 points and Abbott Laboratories (Pakistan) Limited with 4 points.