KARACHI: On Wednesday, Pakistan’s stock surged on positive news throughout the day as Pakistani rupee regained its position against US dollar in the interbank market while huge textile orders and news of declining trade deficit enhanced the participation of players.
The Karachi share Index (KSE-100) went up by 514.18 points (1.29 per cent) at 40,377.54 against the previous closing of 39,863.36.
Trading volume slightly enhanced to 241.9 million shares today as compared to 174.7 million traded in the previous session, according to PSX website data. The daily traded value increased to Rs 9.831 billion from Rs 6.794 billion in the previous session, the data said.
According to the analysts, there was news of declining trade deficit up to 20 per cent in October 2020 on a month-on-month basis. October’s trade deficit declined because of low imports. The drop in imports was mainly on account of a reduction in petroleum group (-14%/-$107 million MoM), machinery group (-14%/-$87 million MoM), and other items (-24%/-$94 million MoM).
Within exports, the textile group has yet to record a noteworthy increase given recent reports of textile exporters having their order books saturated for the next 6 months in some cases. Meanwhile, there was also an impact of rupee appreciation in the stock market which gained almost 30-35 paisas during the session today.
According to the analyst of AKD brokerage house, the market continued its upward trend despite the rise in Coronavirus cases which is 139 days high in Pakistan. The international oil prices slightly recovered while the banks and selected techs, buoying overall market sentiments support local stocks.
TRG recorded the highest volumes for the day with 21 million shares traded followed by UNITY 21 million shares traded and HASCOL 13 million shares. HUBCO contributed the most to the index decline (down 1.34% tracking the ongoing deadlock between the govt-IPP negotiations) while PPL provided the biggest boost (up 7.32% – tracking gains in international oil prices and extension of Sui mining lease) to the benchmark.
Stocks that contributed significantly to the volumes include TRG, UNITY, HASCOL, FFBL and OGDC, which formed 29% of total volumes.
Stocks that contributed positively to the index include PPL (+93pts), OGDC (+90pts), POL (+68pts), SYS (+41pts) and TRG (+34pts). Stocks that contributed negatively include HUBC (-23pts), LUCK (-17pts), FCCL (-9pts), EFERT (-8pts) and ABOT (-6pts).
