Zubair Yaqoob
Karachi
The market commenced on a negative note last week following the FY21 budget announcement which once again included highly ambitious revenue targets. However, rise in international oil prices (benefitting E&P) and news regarding breakthrough in discovery of drug for treating COVID-19 patients, improved investor sentiment briefly.
The sentiment was short lived as re-introduction of a “smart lockdown” by sealing off hotspots in cities adversely affected sentiment in the bourse. Moreover, fall in large scale manufacturing data by 41.89% YoY during Apr’20 and Pak Rupee depreciation against USD to PKR 167.40/USD further dented confidence.
The market settled at 33,439 points, shedding 1,172 points (down by 3.4%) WoW. Sector-wise negative contributions came from Commercial Banks (293pts), Fertilizer (226pts), Cement (183pts), Oil & Gas Marketing Companies (96pts) and Power Generation & Distribution (91pts).
Whereas, sector-wise positive contribution came from Pharmaceuticals (9pts) and Textile Spinning (3pts). Scrip-wise negative contributions were led by UBL (94pts), LUCK (92pts), ENGRO (74pts), FFC (68pts) and HUBC (65pts). Foreign selling continued this week clocking-in at USD 4.8mn compared to a net sell of USD 7.7mn last week. Selling was witnessed in Fertilizer (USD 2.4mn) and Commercial Banks (USD 1.9mn). On the domestic front, major buying was reported by Individuals (USD 12.3mn) and Broker Proprietary Trading (USD 0.5mn). Average Volumes settled at 229mn shares (up by 1% WoW) while average value traded clocked-in at USD 42mn (down by 16% WoW).
