Daily Times

Bulls ruled the roost at Pakistan Stock Exchange on Tuesday as better than expected, quarterly financial result season lifted market sentiments. The market witnessed active investor participation on Tuesday, which lifted Kse-100 by 616.41 points to close at 40, 956.58 index level.

The market witnessed robust ascension right after the opening bell, as investors digested positive financial results of the companies. Among the major companies, International Steel Limited (ISL) revealed a substantial growth of 60.7% to stand at Rs 559 million (EPS: Rs 1.29) during 1QFY21 against net profits of Rs 347 million (EPS: Rs 0.80) of the same period last year. While, Attock Petroleum Limited also witnessed a 21% YoY increase in net profits for 1QFY21 ended on September 30th, 2020, to Rs 1.485 billion against the net profits of Rs 1.225 billion reported in the same period last year. Moreover, Meezan Bank also announced solid unconsolidated earnings, and revealed that the Earning per share stood at 4.53 with Rs 4 cash dividend, which led the stock rally by Rs 5.20 during the session.

The market also assuaged political concerns despite Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM), a coalition of nearly dozens of political parties continued to ramp up pressure on the federal government. However, Analysts believe, investors will closely follow upcoming Financial Action Task Force (FATF) review which will drive the pace of the future course of market trend. The virtual plenary of the FATF, is set to be held on October 21-23, which will take the final call on Pakistan’s continuation on its grey list after a thorough review of Pakistan’s performance in fulfilling the global commitments and standards in the fight against money laundering and terror financing. Investors are expecting Pakistan to avoid the black list and stay in grey list, since out a total of 27 action plan obligations given by anti-money laundering body, Pakistan has so for cleared 21. However, raising optimism, earlier this month, Pakistan’sForeign Minister Shah MehmoodQureshi said, Pakistan would participate in the virtual meeting on the FATF to be held in Paris, and hoped that Pakistan would be on the white list of the FATF soon. Qureshi also mentioned that America and some other countries would support Pakistan on FATF.

During the day, the benchmark KSE-100 Index remained in the green zone throughout the session and touched intra high at 41,056.95 after gaining 716.78 points. The index volumes, however staged strong recovery during the day as market participation at kse-100 increased from 182.42 million shares recorded in the previous session to 323.06 million shares,whilethe overall market volumes also increased from 319.56 million shares from the previous session to 492.67 million shares, highest all- share volume since Sept 23, 2020.

The volume chart was led byUnity Foods Limited followed by Hascol Petroleum Limitedand Fauji Foods Limited. The scrips exchanged 77.97 million, 50.72million and 35.14 million shares, respectively.

Sectors whichlifted the index were Cement with 111 points, Power Generation & Distribution with 107 points, Commercial Banks with 91 points, Oil& Gas Exploration Companies with 72 points and Oil & Gas Marketing Companies with 50 points. Among the scrips, most points added to the index was by Hub Power Company Limitedwhich contributed 84 points followed by Lucky Cement Limited with 48 points, Meezan Bank Limited with 42 points, Pakistan Petroleum Limited with 37 points and HabibBank Limited with 30 points.

However, sectors which continued to add pressure on the index were Close – End Mutual Fund with 4 points, Miscellaneous with 2 points, Food & Personal Care Products with 2 points, Automobile Parts & Accessories with 2 points and Textile Spinning with 1 points. Among the scrips, most points taken off the index was by Habib Metropolitan Bank Limited which stripped the index of 7 points followed by United Bank Limited with 5 points, Abbott Laboratories (Pakistan) Limited with 4 points, HBL Growth Fund.