Stock Watch - Market recovers after 4-week bearish spell on positive IMF review and FATF development.

Summary

The stock market after continued 4-week of decline from January 13, 2020 finally closed this week on a positive note with gain of 99.63 points.

The investors during the period seemed to be worried about the political stability of the government, its survival, the rising inflation, the economic stability and the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) action plan.

The end of IMF Mission press conference on Friday and statement "Considerable progress has been made in the last few months in advancing reforms and continuing with sound economic policies." The court decision of sentencing banned Jamaatud Dawa (JuD) Chief Hafiz Saeed and his aides including Malik Zafar Iqbal for terrorism financing, Hammad Azhar Minister for Economic Affairs commitment to succeed in FATF Plenary and Working Group meeting in Paris from Feb 16-23 and the visiting Turkish President's reiterating his country's support against FATF challenge add strength to Pakistan's effort to come out of grey list.

During the week the KSE-100 Index dipped to 39,000 level finally recovering and closing on Friday at 40,243.26. The average volume remained 168m shares like previous week, while market capitalization decreased byRs.11 billion to close at Rs.5.564 trillion. The foreigners this week remained seller with $11.10m.

On Monday, the Index plunged 846.93 points to close below 40,000 level to 39,296.70. The Mutual Funds turned out to be the heaviest seller worth $5.20m.

Trading started on firm note on Tuesday but remained choppy during the day, In the final hour the gains were seen in market mainly to buying by insurance companies to the tune of $2.46m. The Index gained 417.78m points to close at 39,714.46.

The stock market crossed 40,000 mark on Wednesday and gained 816.67 points to close at 40,531.13. The Mutual Funds which were major seller on Monday turned out to be major buyer with $5.04m.

The stock market started on firm note with early gains, which, however turned choppy and closed 75.69 down at 40,455.44.

The stock market ends Friday session on bearish note. The Index shed 212.18 points to close at 40,243.26.

Participants/Activity

On average shares of 345 companies were traded. Of these 151 were gainers and 175 were losers and 19 remained unchanged.

Foreigners were net seller $11.16m during the week; companies were buyer by $4.53m, Banks were buyer $3.64m; Mutual fund net seller $3.42m and...