KARACHI – Pakistan Stock Exchange has started to bounce back on th news ofeconomic revival.
The capital market during the outgoing week recorded appreciableimprovement where sharp increase in crude oil price helped build handsomerally in local oil and exploration companies which accounted for 40 percentgained in the overall index.
The KSE-100 index gained 1,502 points or 4 percent closing at 39,049 levelduring the outgoing week. The improvement was also due to development thataround $3 billion support package was agreed with the United Arab Emirates,as per official announcement, to help the country with its balance ofpayments crisis.
Furthermore, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) expressed a degree ofsatisfaction over Pakistan’s efforts and action plan to combat moneylaundering and terror financing under international obligations andindicated certain areas to do more before May this year to get out of thegrey list, as per Pakistani officials. This news further improved investorsentiments.
With WTI crude oil rising 10 percent in past week, E&Ps were the bestperformers during the week adding 606 points to the index. They werefollowed by Commercial Banks and Fertilizers, which added 600 points,cumulatively.
The average daily traded volumes for the week were 140 million shares, up18 percent on weekly basis and average daily traded value for the week was$46 million, up 12 percent compared with preceding week.
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Foreign investors accumulated stocks worth of $0.6 million in the past weekcompared to net selling of $0.5 million last week.
Buying was concentrated in Commercial Banks, and Cements. On the localfront, Mutual Funds led the bullish sentiments, displaying major buying atthe index worth $6.7mn followed by Broker Proprietary $6.4 million.
Other key news during the week were (1) remittances increased by 10 percentduring first half of the fiscal year, while Dec-2018 remittances declinedby 2% YoY, (2) State Bank of Pakistan’s (SBP) forex reserves fell to $7.05billion in the last week, (3) the government appointed new managingdirectors for Sui Northern Gas Pipeline (SNGPL) and Sui Southern Gas (SSGC)and (4) World Bank released a report where it expects Pakistan’s FY19 GDPgrowth to decline to 3.7%.
