Friday, March 17 2023

Stocks add 58 points on cherry-picking
Cherry-picking by investors led the index of representative stocks on the Pakistan Stock Exchange to post a small gain on Wednesday. Arif Habib Ltd said the KSE-100 index opened on the lower side owing to the ongoing political turbulence caused by the government’s attempt to arrest former premier Imran Khan. However, bulls quickly drove the index up to an intraday high of 193.69 points as investors accumulated stocks on attractive valuations. Trading volumes remained robust across the mainboard stock while the cement sector stayed in the spotlight on the expectation of good earnings in the upcoming results’ season. As a result, the KSE-100 index settled at 41,874.04 points, up 57.61 points or 0.14 per cent from the preceding session. The overall trading volume increased 25.9pc to 233.3 million shares. The traded value went up 24.9pc to $29.85m on a day-on-day basis. Stocks contributing significantly to the traded volume included Maple Leaf Cement Factory Ltd (32.8m shares), Hascol Petroleum Ltd (12.3m shares), WorldCall Telecom Ltd (11m shares), Fauji Cement Company Ltd (9.4m shares) and D.G. Khan Cement Company Ltd (8.4m shares). Sectors contributing the most to the index performance were cement (118.5 points), commercial banking (20.6 points), engineering (19.2 points), textile composite (13.8 points) and paper and board (12.2 points). Companies registering the biggest increases in their share prices in absolute terms were ZIL Ltd (Rs16.14), JS Global Capital Ltd (Rs14.50), Khyber Tobacco Company Ltd (Rs13.45), Fazal Cloth Mills Ltd (Rs10.43) and Abbott Laboratories Pakistan Ltd (Rs9.95).
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‘Dollar-starved’ Pakistan struggles to pay international airlines: report
The global air transport body has warned of an ‘aviation crisis’ in Pakistan as airlines are struggling to recover $290 million due to a severe financial crisis, the Financial Times reported on Thursday. Pakistan Civil Aviation Authority (PCAA) has said it was trying to pay the airlines on time and has been in contact with relevant authorities over the issue. The Financial Times, while quoting the International Air Transport Association (IATA) said it has become “very challenging” for carriers to serve Pakistan as they struggle to repatriate their dues which are paid in dollars. The IATA, which represents some 300 airlines comprising 83 per cent of global air traffic, said $290m were stuck in Pakistan as of January up by almost a third since December. “Airlines are facing long delays before they are able to repatriate their funds,” Philip Goh, the IATA’s Asia-Pacific head, was quoted as saying by FT. “Some airlines still have funds stuck in Pakistan from sales in 2022.”
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Tuesday, March 14 2023

KSE-100 gains 452 points on expected IMF deal this week
Share prices rose on Monday with the benchmark KSE-100 index gaining 452.03 points, or 1.08 per cent, to reach 42,246.69 points at 10:38am. Intermarket Securities’ Head of Equity Raza Jafri attributed the gains to market expectations that the government would clinch a desperately needed staff-level agreement (SLA) with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) this week. “The reported extension in Saudi Arabia’s deferred oil facility by a year is also being looked upon favourably,” he added. Aba Ali Habib Securities’ Head of Research Salman Naqvi also shared the view, saying the primary reason for the KSE-100’s rise was the expectation of the SLA being signed soon. Besides this, there were reports that the international money lender had given the government till June to privatise state-owned corporations and resolve the circular debt in the gas sector, he said. As a result, share prices of state-run companies such as Oil and Gas Development Corporation (OGDC), Pakistan Petroleum Limited (PPL) and Sui Southern Gas Company Limited (SSGCL), which are index heavyweights, rose, Naqvi added.
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Waiting for IMF
FINANCE Minister Ishaq Dar has blamed the delay in the conclusion of discussions with the IMF on the ‘trust deficit’ created by the previous government, accusing it of not meeting its commitments to the lender after signing the $6bn funding programme in 2019. He is right to the extent that the present PML-N-led set-up inherited a fractured relationship with the Fund, because the PTI either dragged its feet on economic reforms it had pledged to carry out or reversed some of them soon after their implementation. But the problem didn’t start with the PTI government. Islamabad has a long history of breaking promises it made to the IMF over 23 programmes in seven decades. Little wonder Pakistan was called a ‘one-tranche’ country until not very long ago. Mr Dar, too, has contributed his bit to enlarging the credibility gap by deviating from the programme his predecessor had helped revive after months of tough talks and execution of ‘prior actions’ that have become the hallmark of the bailouts the Fund has extended to Islamabad in recent years. Hence, a blame game will do no one any good.
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Auto sales drop 73pc
Dark clouds continued to hover over the auto sector as overall sales of cars, vans, pickups and light commercial vehicles (LCVs) posted a 73 per cent year-on-year drop in February to 5,762 units which is the lowest monthly sales number after 4,500 units in May 2020. During the first eight months of the fiscal year, overall sales shrank by 44pc to 100,057 units from 178,250 in the same period of FY22. In this bleak auto sales picture, Hyundai Nishat’s Tucson performed exceptionally better as it sold 708 units in February as compared to 620 units the previous month. Tucson sales swelled by 60pc to 3,558 units in 8MFY23 from 2,230 units in 8MFY22. Elantra and Sonata sales surged to 243 and 197 units in February from 173 and 191 units in January. However, their demand plunged by 12pc and 43pc in 8MFY23 to 1,695 and 939 units as compared to 1,929 and 1,638 units in 8MFY22. Hyundai Porter sales stood at 123 units in February, down by 21pc from January while sales fell by 27pc to 846 units 8MFY23.
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