KARACHI – Investors’ participation continued to dilute as the stock market exhibited an average daily volume of merely 60 million shares, while current volumes depicted a similar picture. Prudent investors waited patiently for the right time and opportunity to re-enter the stock market.
Sentiment seemed fairly weak, as the benchmark dwindled around 222 points within a week’s time. Friday’s second session recovery of 32 points, the streak of four consecutive days of negative closings, was broken. Result session has kicked off well with HBL, which was fairly better in contrast with analyst consensus expectations.
The upcoming week is expected to witness a flurry of results from top tier along with mid tier stocks, and better results may support market sentiment as improvement is likely in the upcoming days. The budget making process is in full swing as little time is left before the year’s budget will be tabled in the National Assembly.
FBR would plausibly look to introduce new taxation measures in the form of agriculture tax, service tax or wealth tax. Economic numbers are quite encouraging especially exports, record remittances along with expected wheat crop to surpass the 25 million tonnes mark. The SBP expected that economic growth for the fiscal year would be around 2.5 percent and three percent, whereas fiscal deficit is expected to reach 6.5 percent of the GDP.
A glimpse at KSE-100 stocks points out that performance was disappointing as merely 18 stock appreciated versus 76 stocks traded in red zone during the week, while rest of the stocks maintained their price levels. Better result announcement, by HBL, kept the stock traveling on a high tide.
Urea price hike, due to gas curtailment on SNGP network, by Engro is likely to be followed by FFC. Assumingly, Engro’s new plant remains out of production, keeping the stock in red zone for most of the period.
Foreign selling of $3.01 million was seen during the week. Bilal Asif at HMFS believes that commencement of quarterly result season may improve market sentiments and volumes.
