Pakistan Stock Exchange witnessed positive trend during the week ended August 06on the back fresh buying in various sectors. BRIndex100 gained 95.36 points on week-on-week basis to close at 5,148.87 points. Average daily trading volumes stood at 357.498 million shares. BRIndex30 increased by 521.38 points to close at 25,776.60 points with average daily turnover of 217.393 million shares. KSE-100 index surged by 434.66 points on week-on-week basis and closed at 47,489.95 points. Trading activity also improved as average daily volumes on the ready counter increased by 12.4 percent to 455.01 million shares as compared to previous week’s average of 404.84 million shares. Average daily trading value increased by 5.9 percent to Rs\13.93 billion. Total market capitalisation increased by Rs98 billion to Rs8.340 trillion. Experts said sentiments improved as a result of positive news flow on the foreign policy front and encouraging macro developments with FBR July 2021 revenue collection of Rs413 billion exceeding the target by 21 percent, and progress on implementing new power subsidy mechanism, igniting hopes of a successful IMF review in September 2021. Sector wise performance demonstrates stronger gains in textile weaving (up 7pc) and glass and ceramics (up 6.6pc) while within major market sectors, engineering (up 3.6pc) and textile composites (up 3pc) topped chart for the week. Top performers for the week were HASCOL (up 34 percent), STJT (up 17 percent), HMM (up 15.1 percent), GADT (up 12.6 percent) and SFL (up 11 percent), while laggards were JDWS (down 8.2 percent), PSEL (down 7.5 percent), SCBPL (down 4.8 percent), UNITY (down five percent) and AGP (down 2.8 percent). Foreign investors turned out to be net buyers of $3.1 million this week with a significant portion of the buying seen in the technology sector. On the local side, individuals turned out to be the largest buyers while mutual funds were net sellers of $10.6 million. The oil marketing sector outperformed the KSE-100 index on strong POL sales during the month of July. Agencies add: The Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) is likely to maintain positive momentum in the week starting today (Monday) due to end to Sindh lockdown, expected corporate profitability, improvement in macroeconomic fundamentals, and accommodative monetary policy stance. However, the ongoing fourth wave of Covid-19 may add some risk to investors’ confidence, albeit new cases and positivity rate inched down in the end of the last week. Again, instability in oil prices could keep market performance in check, as crude prices declined on a week-on-week basis and recorded their worst week since March. This decline was despite the fact that crude prices recovered some losses in the last two sessions. Any further downtrend in rupee against the US dollar may rail investors’ confidence and fuel profit taking. However, with the $2.8 billion SDR allocation expected from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in August, the reserves position will consolidate further which is significantly positive given uncertainty over the external account outlook. On the regional front, the conflict in Afghanistan continues to be a major concern, especially for foreign investors, that may restrain the market from posting exorbitant gains. According to analysts at Arif Habib Limited, the stock market is likely to stay in green during this time owing to a lower interest rate regime. They said that the low interest rate regime and pro-growth stance of the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) should keep equities attractive. Moreover, the result season should keep cyclical in limelight while reduced provisioning, and healthy fee income/capital gains should help fuel banking earnings. They said that Covid-19 fourth wave is a concern which may keep sentiment jittery. Taking a view of the last week performance of PSX, the benchmark KSE-100 Index managed to close the week with a gain of 435 points (+0.92 percent) at 47,489.95 points. Trading remained volatile throughout the week with the index finishing three out of five sessions in the green. The KSE-100 index is currently trading at a PER of 6.7x (2021) compared to Asia Pac regional average of 16.1x while offering a dividend yield of 6.6 percent versus 2.4 percent offered by the region.