Stocks surge as COAS-stakeholders meeting fires up sentiment

Stocks on Thursday staged a strong upswing on decent bursts of buying by institutions and foreign funds, while sentiments caught some fire after a rare late-night meeting of business leaders with the army chief, seen by the most as a significant development, dealers said.

Pakistan Stock Exchange’s (PSX) KSE-100 Shares Index sprang 1.20 percent or by 388.91 points to close at 32,752.26 points, while mirroring the benchmark index’s performance, KSE-30 also hit a high of 1.20 percent or 181.83 points to end at 15,349.71 points.

Trading was witnessed in 384 shares and of that total 311 gained, 63 lost, and 10 remained inert. Trading volume hit a 227-session high of 324 million shares, almost doubling over Wednesday’s turnover of 181.357 million, while traded value jumped 68 percent day-on-day to $58.2 million, the highest since May 2019.

Analyst Ahsan Mehanti from Arif Habib Corporations said, “Stocks closed bullish in the quarter-end earnings season led by scrips across the board on strong corporate earnings outlook”.

Speculations on ease in circular debt crises amid government’s approval for a hike in power tariff by 83 percent per unit and surging banking spreads led to a bullish close, Mehanti added.

Salman Ahmad, head of institutional sales at Aba Ali Habib Securities, said the market gained on the back of institutional support and foreign participation. “The market went up on grounds of technical improvement because at 32,200 popints’ level the index was getting support, hinting at a rise of around 500 points, which happened,” Ahmad said.

Faisal Shaji, strategist at Standard Capital, said, “The market sentiments have improved, while individual participation is driving the market in the wake of improved economic fundamentals i.e. tax collection and export drive yielding good results”.

Blue chip results are also encouraging alongside payouts, while outcome on FATF (Financial Action Task Force) also looks good for the country, Faisal added. Samiullah Tariq, director research at Arif Habib Limited, said during the past five sessions, the domestic equity bourse rose by 4.2 percent (+1,318 points).

The market got strength from a late night meeting between Chief of Army Staff General Qamar Bajwa and the businessmen, where the latter were assured of remedial measures to boost the production and strengthen fiscal discipline, said an analyst.

Madiha Javed head of research at Ismail Iqbal Securities said, “The KSE-100 index closed on a positive note on higher volumes , while inflation for September came in at 11.4 percent YoY on the 2015-16 base year largely in-line with expectations”.

Commercial banks, cement, fertiliser, and power generation and distribution companies remained the major contributors to the index cumulatively adding 360 points, Javed added. The highest gainers were Bata Pakistan, up Rs65.36 to close at Rs1372.61/share, and Mari Petroleum, up Rs17.56 to finish at Rs923.79/share.

Companies that booked highest losses were Nestle Pakistan, down Rs63.50 to close at Rs5520/share, and Colgate Palmolive, down Rs42.50 to close at Rs1900.01/share.

K-Electric Limited had the highest volumes with 35.771 million shares, gaining Rs0.34 to end at Rs4.09/share. The lowest turnover were witnessed in Bank of Punjab, posting 9.056 million shares, whereas it gained Rs0.18 to end at Rs9.17/share.