Zubair Yaqoob
Karachi
Past week was a two-day trading week following the Eid holidays. Investors are expecting the upcoming budget to be focused upon measures to uplift the economy.
However stringent revenue targets are likely to be a major deterrent. That said, news coming in this week has been suggestive of no new additional taxation measures. The index went up by 95 points WoW to settle at 33,931 points. Sector-wise positive contributions came from Technology & Communication (+46pts), Cement (+43pts), and Pharmaceuticals (+39pts) while negative contributions came from Fertilizers (-43pts), and Commercial Banks (-39pts). Scrip-wise positive contributions were led by TRG (+28pts), OGDC (+26pts), and LUCK (+23pts) while ENGRO (-49pts) and UBL (-30pts) remained laggards. Foreign offloading during the week arrived at USD 2.42mn compared to a net sell of USD 8.77mn last week. Selling was witnessed in Fertilizer (USD 2.54mn), Textile Composite (USD 1.81mn) and Banks (USD 1.01mn). On the domestic front, Individual accumulated stocks worth USD 3.93mn, while buying by Broker Proprietary Trading arrived at USD 0.62mn. Average volumes settled at 214mn shares (up by 4% WoW) while average value traded clocked-in at USD 54mn (up by 13% WoW).
