Pakistan bourse starts financial year on positive note

KARACHI: The Pakistan equity market started the financial year 2022 on a positive note and remained in the green territory throughout the day, as the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) surpassed the revenue collection target, inflation stood at 9.7 per cent and exports during the outgoing year reached an all-time high of $25.3 billion.

An analyst at Topline Securities said the market performed well on the first day of FY22, adding a total of 487 points on the board and maintained the momentum by the end of the session.

“Profit booking by institutions in the past couple of sessions in the wake of closing FY21 with decent returns, left the institutions with deployable funds that will likely [to] route back to equities in the coming days.”

The Pakistan Stock Exchange KSE-100 shares index gained 0.94 per cent, or 444.55 points, to close at 47,800.57 points. The KSE-30 shares index gained 0.91 per cent, or 171.89 points, to close at 19,133.79 points.

As many as 421 scrips were active, of which 302 advanced, 107 declined and 12 remained unchanged. The ready market volumes stood at 760 million shares, compared with the turnover of 549.6 million shares in the last trading session.

Buying activity was observed across-the-board with technology, cement and banking stocks contributing the most. Positive news triggers on the economic front, including the textile sector posting healthy export growth kept the momentum alive.

The cement sector remained in the limelight where Lucky Cement gained 2.8 per cent, D G Khan Cement went up 2.1 per cent, Maple Leaf Cement (MLCF) surged 1.1 per cent and Fauji Cement went up 1 per cent.

Muhamad Mubashir at JS Global Capital said the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) had reportedly allowed the Power Division to process the payments to the independent power producers (IPPs) of the Power Policy 2002.

“Moreover, oil refining policy is expected to be presented before the Cabinet soon. We expect the market to maintain the positive trend and recommend investors to buy on dips in the construction and refinery sectors.”

The companies, which reflected the highest gains included Unilever Foods, up Rs616.25 to close at Rs16,990/share; and Colgate Palmolive, up Rs144.97 to close at Rs2,644.97/share.

The companies that reflected the most losses included Wyeth Pakistan, down Rs43.55 to close at Rs2,085.44/share; and Bata Pakistan, down Rs42.13 to end at Rs1,672.27/share.

The highest volumes were witnessed in WorldCall Telecom with a turnover of 199.48 million shares. The scrip gained 14 paisas to close at Rs4.1/share; followed by SilkBank with a turnover of 51.43 million shares. It shed one paisa to close at Rs2/share. TPL Corp was the third with a turnover of 48.33 million shares. It shed 52 paisas to finish at Rs19.03.

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