Benchmark index soars 421.36 points to settle at 48,726.08
The Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) witnessed a bullish trend in the first post-budget session on Monday, with the benchmark KSE-100 Index gaining 421.36 points (+0.87 percent) to close at 48,726.08 points.
The market opened on a positive note and remained in the green zone throughout the session. The KSE-100 Index remained positive throughout the session, touching an intraday high of 48,981.8 points.
Among other indices, the KSE All Share Index gained 387.6 points (+1.18 percent) to close at 33,103.22 points, while All Share Islamic Index gained 384.68 points (+1.63 percent) to close at 24,055.86 points.
A total of 382 companies traded shares in the stock exchange, out of them shares of 219 closed up, shares of 149 closed down while shares of 14 companies remained unchanged.
The overall market volumes increased by 193.62 million to 1,217.85 million shares. The number of total trades increased by 70,895 to 281,632, and value traded increased by Rs17.97 billion to Rs42.85 billion. The overall market capitalisation increased by Rs99.02 billion.
Among scrips, BYCO led the table with 108.4 million shares, followed by HUMNL (108.1 million) and WTL (98 million). Stocks that contributed significantly to the volumes include BYCO, HUMNL, WTL, ASL and AGL, which formed 32 percent of total volumes.
The sectors propping up the index were oil & gas exploration companies with 201 points, cement with 92 points, engineering with 52 points, commercial banks with 42 points and oil & gas marketing companies with 32 points. The most points added to the index were by OGDC which contributed 105 points followed by PPL with 68 points, SYS with 44 points, INIL with 27 points and POL with 25 points.
Sector wise, the index was let down by fertilizer with 43 points, textile composite with 27 points, technology & communication with 21 points, food & personal care products with 16 points and chemicals with 5 points. The most points taken off the index were by TRG which stripped the index of 61 points followed by FFC with 27 points, UNITY with 17 points, FFBL with 13 points and NRL with 10 points.
Analysts at Arif Habib Limited said that the market opened on a positive note following the budget announcement on Friday evening. They said that dividend anticipation state-owned enterprises helped OGDC propel to hit upper circuit (with a hefty dividend payout expectation), followed by positive price performance of PPL.
Similarly, positive measures for footwear, tyre, refinery, steel and cement sectors supported the listed scrips in these sectors to perform positively during the session, they said.
According to them, the market hit a high of 677 points after the pre-opening session, after which profit booking brought the index down by around 400 points; however, buying momentum continued due to multiple incentives announced in the budget, which enabled the KSE-100 Index to close +421 points. The major incentive is reduction in capital gain tax (CGT) from 15% to 12.5% which has cushioned the investors’ interest in the market.
Moreover, reduction in GST on 850cc or lower capacity vehicles, tax incentives to refineries, reduction in turnover tax to 1.25%, allocation of record PSDP of Rs900bn, removal of WHT on cash withdrawals, also boosted investors’ sentiments, they further said.
