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Friday March 29, 2024

Stocks rally as govt cuts down Covid curbs

By Our Correspondent
May 18, 2021

Stocks rallied on Monday hooking onto a slack in Covid curbs amid falling infection rate, while Pakistan’s gaining weight in MSCI indices also came as a morale booster, dealers said.

Pakistan Stock Exchange’s (PSX) KSE-100 Shares Index gained 1.38 percent or 621.64 points to close at 45,796.31 points. Volumes jumped to 437.44 million shares from 245.64 million in the last trading session.

Topline Securities in a note said investors cheered the decline in Covid-19 cases and MSCI Rebalancing in which the additions i.e., Lucky Cement and TRG gained 4.04 percent and 7.50 percent respectively.

On the other hand, OGDC, which was deleted from the MSCI EM index, witnessed some selling pressure to close the day with a loss of 4.52 percent, the brokerage added. It further said increase in flat steel and rebar products resulted in renewed investor interest in the engineering sector, which closed 4.39 percent higher for the day.

As many as 405 scrips were active of which 278 advanced, 105 declined, and 22 remained unchanged. Brokerage Arif Habib Limited in a report said the first trading session after long Eid holidays opened 347 points positive following rebalancing of MSCI Indices.

Tech stocks also continued the uptrend with prominent performance by TRG Pakistan, Netsol Technologies, and AVN Systems, the brokerage added. KSE-30 Shares Index gained 1.42 percent (261.96 points) to close at 18,731.83 points.

Ahsan Mehanti at Arif Habib Corp said stocks closed bullish led by oil, autos, and cement on strong sales and hints by finance minister regarding Rs900 billion development expenditure in the federal budget FY22.

Higher global crude prices, falling government bond yields and speculations ahead of the federal budget next month kept the gains pouring in, Mehanti added. Neelam Naz at JS Global Capital said bulls were in control throughout the day with technology and food sectors being the main contributors.

Sentiment was mainly positive because of a decrease in Covid cases, she said. Naz said KEL recorded a high trade volume after reports the federal government and the utility were not far from a long-awaited settlement on a new Power Purchase Agreement (PPA).

Also important to note was the MSCI rebalancing to be effective from May 28th, whereby Lucky Cement was upgraded to EM Standard Index from Small Cap Index, OGDC was deleted from the EM Standard Index, and TRG Pakistan was added to Small Cap Index, Naz said. Pearl Securities in its market review said the bourse opened strong and remained in the green zone throughout the day.

Investors celebrated the ease in lockdown and reopening of business and transportation activities across the country as Covid-19 cases start declining, it added. “In upcoming days, we expect the market to continue to rally in the coming week due to the resumption in business activities across the country,” the brokerage said. Day’s best gainers turned out to be Wyeth Pakistan, up Rs83.34 to close at Rs1,194.59/share, and Philip Morris Pakistan, up Rs55.82 to close at Rs890.19/share.

Among worst losers were Sapphire Textile, down Rs68 to close at Rs882/share, and Sapphire Fiber, down Rs67.42 to end at Rs831.58/share. Worldcall Telecom was volume leader with 72.91 million shares, followed by K-Electric Limited with 38.30 million, and Ghani Global posting a turnover of 35.96 million shares.