Stocks rebound as PSX follows regional gains

Stocks, tracking regional peers, redounded on Friday as regional governments and central banks announced measures to keep their economies afloat that helped improved domestic investors’ sentiment, dealers said.

They said some value buying was witnessed on the last trading session of week, as investor confidence improved following rebound in international markets and increase in oil prices.

“Stocks recovered on high trading volumes led by selected scrips across the board as bull run in global equities on stimulus hopes weighed on investors,” analyst Ahsan Mehanti at Arif Habib Corporations said.

Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) benchmark KSE-100 shares index gained 1.78 percent or 537.58 points to close at 30,667.41 points level. KSE-30 shares index followed suit with a high of 2.48 percent or 327.39 points to end at 13,537.03 points level.

Of 344 active scrips, 179 up, 152 retreated, and 13 remained unchanged. The ready market volumes stood at 244.998 million shares, as compared with the turnover of 308.346 million shares in the previous session.

Analysts said the market carried previous day’s momentum and opened with a large stride of +716 points having fetched 1.5 million shares.

The index after succession of 10 days opened on a positive note recorded an increase of more than 700 points at one stage and made session high of 30,928 points. The main reason for changed in fortunes was the rising trend witnessed in Asian markets which after a prolonged bearish session finished with gains.

Moreover, appreciation in the crude oil prices also triggered fresh buying in the local oil and exploration stocks. WTI registered an increase of almost eight percent while Brent was up by five percent.

Fertiliser, E&P and banking sectors turned out to be major avenues where investors took interest. International crude prices also went up overnight and traded 3 percent up that helped E&P scrips hitting upper circuit.

Salman Ahmad, head of institutional sales at Aba Ali Habib said the market recorded some recovery mainly buying at oversold counters and attractive valuations.

“Crude oil also showed gains which helped domestic oil and exploration companies posted good recovery,” Ahmad said

“Next week performance would all depend on the domestic front how things turned on coronavirus… government positive steps will determine the faith of market.”

Samiullah Tariq, director research at Arif Habib said the stability prevailed in global markets and recovery in China over the coronavirus and cheaper valuations helped the market to record modest growth”.

“Moreover across the world the people have over reacted and now they realized that sanity should prevail, helped the index to score fresh gains on the weekend,” Tariq said.

The top gainers were Pakistan Tobacco, up Rs126.05 close at Rs1824.00/share, and Sapphire Fibre Rs54.00 to finish at Rs783.00/share. Phillip Morris Pakistan down Rs157.35 to close at Rs1940.65/share, and Sapphire Textile down Rs47.63 to close at Rs776.64/share, were the main losers.

K-Electric Limited recorded the highest volumes with a turnover of 23.415 million shares. Whereas the scrip lost Rs0.05 end at Rs2.99/share. The lowest volumes were witnessed in Pakistan Petroleum recording a turnover of 7.190 million shares, whereas the scrip gained Rs5.66 to end at Rs81.25/share.