Stocks crawl out of four-day rout on year-end buying, rupee recovery

Stocks on Friday crawled up to end flat after four days of losses as year-end buying, strengthening rupee, and hopes of International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailout package next month, contributed to late recovery in a turbulent trade, dealers said.

Faisal Shaji, Strategist at Standard Capital, said the dull market suddenly got a boost after confidence-building statements on economy by key dignitaries at a seminar on economy in Islamabad especially from chief of army staff, while rupee also strengthened against dollar in today’s trade.

He said also certain books were being beefed up on account of June closing, where certain item showed 'good' closing. As a whole the market remained volatile after the benchmark index made a low of 364.9 points and high of 161 points, Shaji added.

Pakistan Stock Exchange’s (PSX) benchmark KSE-100 shares index gained 0.38 percent or 127.15 points to close at 33,901.58 points level, whereas KSE-30 shares index followed suit with a high 0.08 percent or 13.11 points to end at 15,892.99 points level.

Of 338 active scrips, 204 moved up, 109 retreated, and 25 remained unchanged. The ready market volumes stood at 213.909 million shares, as compared to 135.021 million shares in the previous session.

Salman Ahmad, head of institutional sales at Aba Ali Habib said that the market recorded gains owing to year-end buying and staged a healthy recovery after declines, adding, expectation of IMF approval on July 3 also boosted the sentiment.

Ahmad said next month the market would take cues from the news flows and would react to the number of financial assistance expected from World Bank, Asian Development Bank, and IMF.

Topline Securities in a report said during the outgoing week, the benchmark index lost 3.5 percent amid concerns on the issues related to the budget conclusion and growing concerns on macro-economic uncertainties.

Fitch solutions in its latest report also revised its stance on Pakistan’s GDP forecast for the year FY19/20 to 3.2 percent/2.7 percent; however, during the last trading session index managed to close positive during the week primarily due to rupee appreciation of to 2.4 percent, the brokerage said.

The Topline said commercial banks cumulatively eroded 214 points from the index during the week, followed by E&P & fertilizer sector which cumulatively declined 248 points in the index. It further said traded volume and value during the week improved significantly by 17 percent and 8 percent as compared to the same period last year, respectively.

The highest gainers were Sapphire Fiber, up Rs39.10 to close at Rs821.10/share, and Indus Motor Company, up Rs26.54 to finish at Rs1203.92/share. Companies that booked highest losses were Phillip Morris Pakistan, down Rs188.33 to close at Rs3580.00/share, and Jubilee Life Insurance, down Rs10.58 to close at Rs224.42/share.

Silk Bank Limited recorded the highest volumes with a turnover of 38.491 billion shares. The scrip gained Rs0.2 to close at Rs1.18/share. The lowest volumes were witnessed in Sui Southern Gas, recording a turnover of 5.407 million shares, whereas the scrip gained Rs0.63 to end at Rs20.68/share.