KARACHI: The Pakistan Stocks Exchange on Monday rallied 355 points, surpassing the 43,200 mark despite foreign investors sold Rs1.47 billion worth of shares during the trading session.
At close, the benchmark KSE 100-share Index recorded an increase of 355.48 points or 0.83% to settle at 43,268.29.
After a brief dip in the negative territory, the index started gaining momentum as buying interest was seen. Attractive valuations and calm at the political front led investors to make fresh entry in market. Interest was mostly seen in auto, oil, cement, banks and fertiliser sectors, which helped the index move higher.
Market had a slow start but later institutional flows in key sectors such as oils (up 1.3%), fertilisers (up 1.2%), financials (up 0.9%) and cements (up 0.9%) helped the Index to regain the momentum from last week.
The gas utilities, Sui Northern Gas Co (SNGP PA +5.0%) and Sui Southern Gas Co (SSGC PA +5.0%), were in the limelight (closing at their respective upper price limits and accounting for 12% of the total market activity) after the Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (Ogra) issued a tariff regime whereby the Return on Asset (ROA) for the companies would be computed on the basis of Weighted Average Cost of Capital (WACC).
Overall, trading volumes increased to 118 million shares compared with Friday’s tally of 59.23 million. The value of shares traded during the day was Rs7.02 billion.
Shares of 337 companies were traded. At the end of the day, 184 stocks closed higher, 138 declined while 15 remained unchanged.
Bank of Punjab was the volume leader with 11.7 million shares, with no change to close at Rs12.07. It was followed by Pak Elektron with 8.9 million shares, losing Rs0.01 to close at Rs38.35 and Sui South Gas with 7.7 million shares, gaining Rs1.74 to close at Rs36.67.
Last week, the stocks ended positive for the second successive week with a gain of 838.72 points (2%) as four out of five sessions remained positive. The index settled at 42,913 at the end of the week on June 1.
Participation of investors picked up during the week with average daily traded value increasing 13% to $48 million while average daily volumes stood at 119 million shares, down 0.4%.
In terms of sectors, the biggest contribution to the index came from index-heavy banks. The sector gained 2.1% during the week, adding 163 points to the KSE-100 Index.
Domestic investors accumulated banking stocks after last weekend’s interest rate hike of 50 basis points – the real thrust was observed in mid-tier banking stocks while large caps continued to experience foreign selling.
Among other major sectors, refineries gained 23.9% week-on-week, followed by pharmaceuticals (8.1%) and textile composite (6.8%). Oil and gas marketing, fertiliser and power sectors also closed in the green. Gains in the refinery sector were led by a plunge in international crude oil prices during the week.
Attock Refinery (up 24%) and National Refinery (up 17%) stood out as the two best-performing stocks in the KSE-100 Index amid attractive valuations and restoration of furnace oil supplies to power plants in Pakistan.
Searle Pakistan gained around 12% during the week as news was floating in the market about the build-up of position by a Milan-based asset manager in the company. Foreigners were net sellers during the week amounting to $17.5 million vs net selling of $26.1 million in the previous week.
On the other hand, amongst local investors, banks were net sellers of $4.7 million, whereas insurance companies were net buyers of $30.4 million. Mutual funds remained net sellers as they offloaded shares worth $3.6 million.