Stocks end draggy week on decent note

Stocks on Friday closed a stagnant week on a decent note, with investors mostly betting on better earnings down the road, traders said.

The benchmark KSE-100 Shares Index at Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) finally managed a decent gain of 206.07 points or 0.43 percent to close the day at 47,834.33 points, hitting day high and low of 47,892.20 points and 47,628.26 points respectively.

Ahsan Mehanti, analyst at Arif Habib Corp, said stocks closed bullish led by selected scrips across the board amid speculations ahead of major earning announcements due next week.

He said mid-session pressure remained on falling global crude oil prices and foreign outflows.

Surge in local POL prices by 4.8 percent, Pakistan Stock Brokers Association (PSBA) petition seeking stay over scrips excluding future eligibility criteria and speculations on likely resolution of circular debt crisis pushed the stocks upwards, Mehanti added.

A division bench of Sindh High Court (SHC) has made “inoperative” the PSX Futures Trading Eligibility criteria 4(i) to the extent that it prohibits futures trading of shares of companies which have obtained stay orders against the Securities & Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP). The court gave its interim order after PSBA filed a constitutional petition in SHC against the Futures Eligibility Criteria for Selection of Securities Eligible for Trading in Deliverable Futures Contract and Cash Settled Futures Contract Market, as notified by PSX, with prior approval of SECP.

Following the benchmark’s suit, KSE-30 Shares Index also rose 91.36 points or 0.48 percent to close at 19,210.35 points.

Nabeel Haroon, analyst at Topline Securities, said, positive session was observed on the last day of the trading week, where index largely remained in the green zone.

LUCK, SYS, HBL, UBL, and BAFL, cumulatively contributed 163 points to the index, Haroon said.

Topline analyst further said LUCK spiked 2.5 percent after the holding company announced its subsidiary Lucky Motor Corporation Limited, had recently entered into an agreement with Samsung Gulf Electronics Co, FZE ("Samsung") for producing Samsung branded mobile devices in Pakistan.

Trade volume, however, shrank 158 million shares to 348.57 million against 506.29 million shares a day earlier, while trading value dropped to Rs14.59 billion against Rs15.48 billion. On the other hand market capital rose to Rs8.347 trillion from Rs8.297 trillion.

Nestle Pakistan rose Rs84.99 to Rs5,900 per share to become the best gainer of the day, followed by Premium Textile, up Rs27.76 to end at Rs422.76 per share.

Losing Rs489 to settle at Rs16,000 per share, Unilever was the worst hit share of the session, trailed by Bata (Pakistan), down Rs20 to end at Rs1,680 per share. Pakistan Aluminium Beverage Cans Limited (PABC) was listed Friday, which is the second successive equity listing in the current fiscal year, 2022.

Stocks that saw notable change of hands included TPL Corp Ltd, Al-Shaheer Corp, Treet Corp, Unity Foods Ltd, WorldCall Telecom, Pakistan Alumin, TPL Properties, Byco Petroleum, Hum Network, and Ghani Global Glass.

TPL Corp Ltd led volumes with 29.69 million shares, gaining 66 paisas to close at Rs25.13 per share. It was followed by Al-Shaheer Corp with 17.75 million shares, up 67 paisas to close at Rs20.75 per share.

Turnover in the future contracts dwindled to 61.45 million shares from 80.92 million on Thursday.