Market watch: Winning streak continues for 4th straight session

Benchmark KSE-100 index climbs 593.25 points to settle at 45,450.31

KARACHI:

The Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) extended its rally for the fourth straight day on Wednesday with the benchmark KSE-100 index adding another 593 points to the total level.

The market kicked off trading on a positive note and remained bullish for most of the day as the index touched intra-day high of 683 points. The index roared past the 45,000-point mark in the first hour of trading.

The decision taken by the opposition alliance – the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) – to postpone its long march planned for later this month provided a positive trigger to the market.

The market was also encouraged by the consistent improvement in rupee value against the US dollar and the growth of around 9% in the large-scale manufacturing sector in January on a year-on-year basis.

Furthermore, expectations about maintaining the status quo in the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting scheduled to be held later in the current week strengthened investor sentiment.

The KSE-100 index has added a total of 2,671 points, or 6.24%, in the past four trading days. It is the highest four-day increase since April 3, 2020, when the index surged 3,598 points.

At close, the benchmark KSE-100 index recorded an increase of 593.25 points, or 1.32%, to settle at 45,450.31 points.

Arif Habib Limited, in its report, stated that the market continued to gain ground after clarity on the political front as the PDM put its plans for a countrywide demonstration on hold.

“Resultantly, investors took interest across the board with particular focus on tech stocks, followed by banking, cement, oil and gas marketing, and exploration and production sectors,” the report said.

The rupee’s persistent appreciation also contributed to the market’s positivity, along with news that the government was engaging banks in a bid to launch international bonds for raising external financing.

Sectors contributing to the performance included banks (+175 points), technology (+94 points), cement (+59 points), exploration and production (+50 points) and fertiliser (+40 points).

Individually, stocks that contributed positively to the index included TRG Pakistan (+100 points), UBL (+59 points), HBL (+45 points), Pakistan Petroleum (+24 points) and MCB Bank (+23 points).

Stocks that contributed negatively were Systems Limited (-7 points), Adamjee Insurance Company (-5 points), Kot Addu Power Company (-5 points), Philip Morris Pakistan (-5 points) and Hubco (-4 points).

JS Global analyst Maaz Mulla said bulls dominated the trading session where the KSE-100 index touched intra-day high of +683 points. It closed the session at 45,450, up 593 points on the back of news that the PDM had put off the long march scheduled for next week.

The traded value stood at $159 million while volumes came in at 510 million shares. TRG Pakistan (+6.7%), Unity Foods (+3.2%), Byco Petroleum (+11%) and Pakistan Refinery (+5.2%) cumulatively contributed more than 117 million shares to the total volume.

Technology and cement sectors saw investor interest where TRG Pakistan (+6.7%), NetSol (+1.8%), Avanceon (+7.5%), Pioneer Cement (+1.6%), DG Khan Cement (+1.6%), Kohat Cement (+3.2%) and Power Cement (+1.3%) gained ground.

The banking sector followed the same trend where major movers were Faysal Bank (+4.8%), UBL (+4%), HBL (+2.2%) and MCB (+1.4%).

“Moving forward, short-term profit-taking cannot be ruled out given that the market has bounced back from its recent lows,” the analyst said.

Overall trading volumes jumped to 510.4 million shares compared with Tuesday’s tally of 408.5 million. The value of shares traded during the day was Rs24.8 billion.

Shares of 415 companies were traded. At the end of the day, 320 stocks closed higher, 76 declined and 19 remained unchanged.

TRG Pakistan was the volume leader with 34.4 million shares, gaining Rs9.25 to close at Rs147.9. It was followed by Byco Petroleum with 32.4 million shares, gaining Re1 to close at Rs10.10 and Pakistan Refinery with 26.7 million shares, gaining Rs1.23 to close at Rs25.06.

Foreign institutional investors were net sellers of Rs129.4 million worth of shares during the trading session, according to data compiled by the National Clearing Company of Pakistan.