Stocks pick up on upbeat trade numbers, IMF deal reassurance

Stocks on Tuesday clawed back some ground after days of retreat, as reassuring economic numbers coupled with avowals that a deal with the lender of the last resort was close at hand lent investors a leg to stand on and cherry-pick the shares promising strong returns, dealers said.

Analyst Ahsan Mehanti from Arif Habib Corporation said the recovery led by selected scrips across the board on institutional interest as latest data showed trade deficit shrank 14 percent to $23.45 billion in the first nine months of the current fiscal year and the government affirmations for rupee stability and 15-year highest economic growth by FY23.

“Higher urea prices, rising global crude oil prices, hopes over positive outcome of the last round of IMF (International Monetary Fund) talks for bailout package played a catalyst role in positive close,” Mehanti added.

Pakistan Stock Exchange’s (PSX) benchmark KSE-100 shares index gained 0.56 percent or 208.06 points to close at 37,129.97 points level, whereas KSE-30 picked up 0.60 percent or 104.34 points hit 17,577.62 points level.

Of 350 active scrips, 174 moved up, 149 retreated, and 27 remained unchanged. The ready market volumes stood at 160.484 million shares, as compared with the turnover of 106.972 million shares in the previous session.

Salman Ahmad, director institutional sales at Aba Ali Habib said, “We have seen in the past too that the market got support when the index reaches around 37500, the same happened and a small rally was witnessed”.

“The market got support from Finance Minister Asad Umar’s statement that the government agreement with the IMF would be finalised soon. The data would be shared soon with the fund and package would be disclosed following the finalisation of the program,” Ahmad said.

Madiha Javed, head of research of Ismail Iqbal Securities said the market remained under pressure in the initial hours but later recovered.

Madiha added that power generation and oil marketing companies also continued to garner investors’ attention upon news flow related to government’s plan to list another Islamic bond worth Rs200 billion in the capital market in May 2019.

According to an analyst the market would have scored bigger, but rumors started doing rounds that a cartel of cement companies had been broken which took a toll on the sector.

A trader said news auto sector saw some activity after news that that expos were being planned with the aim of attracting more than 200 hundred exhibitors from across the globe that might help boost the domestic industry. He added that expectations were high that sales number for March and April would show healthy improvement on back of the government’s decision allowing non-filers to buy vehicles.

The highest gainers were Island Textile up Rs74.00 to close at Rs1923.00/share, and Sanofi-Aventis, up Rs25.03 to finish at Rs825.00/share.

Companies that booked highest losses were Bhanero Textile, down Rs38.74 to close at Rs736.26/share, and Siemens Pakistan, down Rs10.00 to close at Rs720.00/share.

K-Electric Limited recorded the highest volumes with a turnover of 9.525 million shares. The scrip gained Rs0.28 to close at Rs5.26/share.

The lowest volumes were witnessed in Unity Foods recording a turnover of 15.885 billion shares, whereas the scrip lostRs0.77 to end at Rs2.78/share.