Daily Times

Pakistan Stock Exchange witnessed positive trend during the week ended on July 16, on the back of fresh buying by both local and foreign investors.

BR Index100 gained 38.63 points on week-on-wenk basis to close at 5,221.35 points. Average daily trading volumes stood at 402.539 million shares.

BR Index30 increased by 116.46 points during this week to close at 26.961.10 points with average daily turnover of 234.783 million shares.

KSE-100 index surged by 270.88 points on week-on-week basis and closed at 47,834.33 points. Trading activities remained slightly low as average daily volumes on ready counter decreased by 3.9 percent to 466.99 million shares as compared to previous week’s average of 485.86 million shares. Average daily traded value declined by 9.4 percent to Rs 15.34 billion.

Total market capitalisation increased by Rs32 billion to Rs8.347 trillion.

An analyst at AKD Securities said that the XSE-100 closed flat in the outgoing week at 47,834 points, up 0.6 percent on week-on-week basis, as investors preferred to remain on sidelines eyeing Eid holidays next week high-low spread diminished to 0.5 percent versus 1.0 percent in the previous week with average volume contracting 4.0 percent on Wow to stand at 467 million shares, while major activity continued to be in the main boards (KSE-100/KSE-All volume standing at 0.3x versus 0.4x average CYTD).

Similar muted performance was recorded across all sectors with exceptions being Modarabas (up 57.3 percent) and Textile Neaving (up 9.1 percent). Flow wise, foreigners turned net buyers during the week with a net inflow of $476 million, mainly in Cements, Techs, and ELFs (51.3 million each on the local side, Insurance and Banks turned out to be the net buyers with $123 million and $1.7 million, respectively while Individuals and Brokers squared the positions indicated by net sell of $10.0 million and 56.3 million, respectively.

Top performers during the week were GADT (up 23.9 percent), STJ7 (up 23.8 percent), PSX (up 13.6 percent), SYS (up 7.3 percent) and GATM (up 6.0 percent), while laggards were HASCOL (down 5.0 percent), SCBPL (down 3.9 percent), GATI (down 3.5 percent), PMPK (down 3.2 percent) and NESTLE (down 3.1 percent).

An analyst at JS Global Capital said lackluster performance continued on the PSX as the KSE-100 index closed the week at 47,834 levels, managing to post a slight points over last week’s closing.

Some of these clouds have already started to rain down as is visible in the latest petrol prices which have touched an all-time high despite zero PDL and reduced GST. Furthermore, the stark increase in Covid-19 infections was another dampener, particularly considering the emergence of the

Delta variant in Pakistan.

On the regional front, the conflict in Afghanistan continues to be a major concern. However, some positive developments did surface on the economic front, such as a 14.57 percent growth in Large Scale Manufacturing during 11 months of FY21 and a record high of $29.4 billion received as workers remittances during FY21.

Moreover, with receipt of the recent 51.0 billion since January reserves with the SBP reached the highest level of 2017.