KARACHI: After five consecutive bullish weeks, Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) benchmark KSE-100 Index closed 0.55 percent down at 40,887 points for the week ended February 8, 2019, as investors resorted to profit‐taking due to lack of any triggers as well as poor corporate results.
“Sector‐wise commercial banks, oil & gas exploration sector and tobacco were the worst performers. With international coal prices falling during the week investors’ remained heavily focused on cements as the sector,” a report issued by Topline Securities said.
China agreeing to provide a loan of $2.5 billion to support depleting foreign exchange reserves, and other news flows regarding GIDC settlement and issuance of directives by SBP for overseas investors to invest in Pakistan Banao Certificate also fueled investor’s sentiment. However, down gradation of Pakistan’s long term credit rating from B to B- by S&P coupled with pressure on international oil prices dented investors sentiments.[the_ad id=”32940″]“Refreshingly though, volumes were slightly higher, up by 10 percent where an average 191 million shares per day were traded during the week, whereas average daily traded value (in dollar terms) also increased by 26 percent,” Ahmed Lakhani at JS Global Capital said in a note.
Foreign buying continued this week clocking-in at $12.2 million compared to a net buy of $12.3 million last week.
Other major news during the week included government proposing to waive off Rs200 billion under GIDC settlement mechanism, the finance minister ruled out downward revision of FBR’s revenue target, Ghandara Nissan (GHNL) likely to begin rolling out three Datsun models in 2020, State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) reserves increasing by $38 million to $8.192 billion on a weekly basis.
Moreover, Pakistan has signed $10 billion gas pipeline agreement with Russia and Pakistan National Shipping Corp (PNSC) has bought 2 LR-1 tankers, taking total fleet size to 11.
Going forward, analysts expect the market to remain range bound given no material event expected in upcoming week, however, visit of Saudi crown prince expected on February 2019 may uncover investment for construction of an oil refinery in Pakistan and other ventures.
In addition, the Prime Minister of Pakistan is visiting UAE on February 2019 to attend World Government Summit, where he will encourage foreigners to invest in different sectors in Pakistan.