Daily Times

Stocks advanced at Pakistan Stock Exchange on Monday, putting the benchmark KSE-100 index headed towards 48,000 level as a bull-run continues with strong volumes.

On Monday the index clocked at 47,896 level after gaining around 770 points by the closing bell, as the Index remained in a positive territory throughout the session, showing an intraday high of 47,979 after it gained about 850 points.

Irfan Saeed, Senior Vice President, BMA Capital Management Limited, said that Market witnessed strong momentum owing to positive economic indicators across the board, but the strong sentiments can primarily be attributed to the State Bank of Pakistan’s decision to keep its policy interest rate unchanged at 7 percent for the fifth consecutive time, for the next two months.

According to the closing note by Arif Habib Ltd, the market crossed the resistance level of 47,300 points comfortably by adding a total of 853 points during the session. It maintained the bullish trend to end the session up by 770 points.

“Factors contributing to the bullish sentiment at the bourse included strong economic numbers from remittances to tax collection and real GDP growth that is anticipated to go up by 4.5%,” it said.

During the session, investors were also impressed by the recent report of the Credit rating agency Fitch Ratings, which expects Pakistan’s growth to stabilise at 4 percent in the next fiscal year, supported by a continued strengthening of domestic consumption and resilient manufacturing and construction activity.

In its report, while affirming Pakistan’s long-term foreign-currency issuer default rating at ‘B-‘ with a stable outlook, Fitch said the economy appears so far to have weathered the pandemic shock well relative to peers. The growth is estimated at 3.9 percent this fiscal year compared to a contraction of 0.5 percent a year earlier.

During the session Market Capital increased by Rs.136.39 billion, while total value traded increased by 9.30 billion to Rs.32.05 billion.

The volume at KSE-100 surged from 223.7 million shares recorded in the previous session to 409.98 million shares, while all shares index also jumped from over 959.8 million shares from the previous session to about 1.4 billion shares.

At KSE-100 the volume chart was led by World Call telecom limited followed by Byco petroleum Pakistan Limited and Silk Bank limited. The scrips exchanged 480.6 million, 94.5 million and 71.59 million shares.

During the session, sectors which lifted the index were Cement with 183 points, Commercial Banks with 104 points, Oil & Gas Marketing Companies with 84 points, Oil & Gas Exploration Companies with 72 points and Textile Composite with 54 points.

Among the scrips, the most points added to the index was by DG Khan Cement Limited which contributed 46 points followed by Lucky cement limited with 45 points, Pakistan State Oil with 42 points, Habib Bank Limited with 32 points and Oil & Gas Development Company Limited with 31 points.

However, among the scrips, the most points taken off the index was by Fauji Fertilizer Company which stripped the index of 9 points followed by National Bank of Pakistan with 5 points, K- Electric with 5 points, Shifa International Hospital with 2 points and GlaxoSmithKline Pakistan Limited with 2 points.