Market watch: Stocks gain slightly in volatile trading

Benchmark KSE-100 index crawls up 66.98 points to settle at 41,266

KARACHI:

The stock market underwent a volatile ride on Friday, hitting intraday low of 41,064.54 points before cherry-picking helped it recover.

The Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) opened up on the back of positive expectations about the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) meeting. Later, the FATF decided to keep the country on grey list until February 2021 as the watchdog found that Pakistan had successfully complied with 21 out of 27 points of action.

The benchmark KSE-100 index, however, failed to sustain the bullish momentum and continued to drop as investors resorted to profit-booking towards the end of first session on news of rising coronavirus cases.

Nonetheless, the second session kicked off with renewed optimism with the upward momentum being fuelled by the recovery of the rupee against the US dollar. The rupee recovered Rs0.45 against the greenback and closed at a five-month high of Rs161.37 in the inter-bank market.

Despite stable oil prices in the international market, bears dominated the oil sector due to the ongoing corporate result announcements.

At close, the benchmark KSE-100 index recorded an increase of 66.98 points, or 0.16%, to settle at 41,266 points.

Arif Habib Limited, in its report, stated that the market traded in a range of -135 points and +184 points. It closed the session in the green.

“The performance was led by mixed expectations about the FATF meeting outcome as well as the result announcements; exploration and production companies declined on the bourse, although international crude oil prices were stable,” the report added.

Financial results kept investors’ interest alive, however, persistent selling in banking and exploration and production sectors kept the index at around the same level.

Corporate result of UBL was scheduled to be announced by the close of session, but was put off until Monday as the meeting was still in progress.

Sectors contributing to the performance included cement (+92 points), insurance (+20 points), fertiliser (+13 points), banks (-31 points), exploration and production (-18 points) and power (-11 points).

Individually, stocks that contributed positively to the index included Lucky Cement (+25 points), Engro Corporation (+19 points), Cherat Cement (+19 points), Maple Leaf Cement (+13 points) and Kohat Cement (+10 points).

Stocks that contributed negatively were Bank AL Habib (-18 points), Hubco (-18 points), Engro Polymer and Chemicals (-10 points), Oil and Gas Development Company (-9 points) and Pakistan Petroleum (-7 points).

JS Global analyst Danish Ladhani said the benchmark KSE-100 index closed on a flat note, gaining only 67 points. “The market remained volatile on the back of FATF meeting as investors booked short-term gains before the final outcome,” he stated.

Among major result announcements were Maple Leaf Cement (+3.5%) and DG Khan Cement (+1.4%).

Maple Leaf Cement recorded earnings per share (EPS) of Rs0.51 for Jul-Sept 2020 compared to loss per share of Rs1.41 in the corresponding quarter of last year, which was above market expectations.

However, DG Khan Cement reported consolidated 1QFY21 loss per share of Rs0.67 versus loss per share of Rs3.30 in the same period of last year.

“Going forward, we expect the market to remain volatile due to upcoming rollover week and FATF decision,” the analyst said, adding, “We recommend investors to book profit on the higher side.”

Overall, trading volumes fell to 354.4 million shares compared with Thursday’s tally of 500.1 million. The value of shares traded during the day was Rs15.6 billion.

Shares of 402 companies were traded. At the end of the day, 219 stocks closed higher, 172 declined and 11 remained unchanged.

Maple Leaf was the volume leader with 45.8 million shares, gaining Rs1.44 to close at Rs42.18. It was followed by Pakistan Refinery with 27.9 million shares, gaining Rs1.34 to close at Rs19.25 and Unity Foods with 24.4 million shares, losing Rs0.38 to close at Rs21.39.

Foreign institutional investors were net sellers of Rs409.7 million worth of shares during the trading session, according to data compiled by the National Clearing Company of Pakistan.