The capital market on Friday closed positive on fresh buying from financial institutions and leading mutual funds, with most important scores arriving from cement and oil shares, dealers said.
Madiha Javed, head of research at Ismail Iqbal Securities, said, “Benchmark KSE-100 shares index remained positive in the initial half of the session on Friday, but came down slightly as rupee came under pressure weakening to Rs155.85/USD, compared to Thursday’s close of Rs152.90/USD. Cements and E&Ps were major contributors to the index’s gains, collectively contributing 139.28 points.”
Moreover, Fitch affirmed Pakistan’s long-term foreign currency default currency rating at ‘B-’ with stable outlook. Fitch also sees CAD to narrow to three percent of GDP in FY20, she added.
Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) KSE-100 index gained 0.48 percent or 169.88 points to close at 35,572.95 points level. KSE-30 shares index followed suit with a high of 0.54 percent or 90.93 points to end at 16,803.76 points level.
Of 338 active scrips, 156 moved up, 160 retreated, and 22 remained unchanged. The ready market volumes stood at 167.876 billion shares, as compared with the turnover of 154.324 billion shares in the previous session.
The stock market opened on a positive note, with equities moving both ways during the first half of the session. The KSE-100 index touched its lowest mark of 35,295 points mainly owing to selling from high net worth individuals and fresh wave of rupee depreciation in the interbank, as well as kerb market.
A leading analyst said that due to year end closing, some of the institutions were on the buying side and secured fresh deals in choice scrips belonging to cement and oil sectors.
Cement shares were up on talks that the price of the commodity was geared to increase, while there was a buying spree in oil shares because of rise in international crude oil price. In other news, the foreign exchange reserves held by SBP declined by $55 million to $7.807 billion during the week ended on June 3, 2019 due to payments on account of external debt servicing. The federal government has added Rs3.9 trillion to the public debt in just 10 months of FY19.
Price of crude has increased by almost six percent over the last two sessions owning to the attack on two oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman, which hinted at mercury heating up in the gulf region. If the situation persists, the price of crude oil was likely to surge more.
The highest gainers were Nestle Pakistan, up Rs139.98 to close at Rs7,087.00/share, and Bata Pakistan, up Rs29.90 to finish at Rs1,342.00/share.
Companies that booked highest losses were Colgate Palmolive, down Rs50.00 to close at Rs2,050.00/share, and Wyeth Pakistan Limited, down Rs17.23 to close at Rs746.17/share.
Maple Leaf recorded the highest volumes with a turnover of 15.451 billion shares. The scrip gained Rs1.2 to close at Rs25.30/share.
The lowest volumes were witnessed in Dewan Cement, recording a turnover of 4.614 million shares, whereas the scrip gained Rs0.39 to end at Rs9.14/share.