Morning Market Brief 16th April. 2021

Technical Overview

The Benchmark KSE100 index had faced rejection from a strong horizontal resistant region along with its 74.6% correction level during last trading session but still succeeded in maintaining above its initial supportive region of 45,200pts at day end. As of now index have major resistant regions ahead at 45,380pts and 45,600pts. Initially it's expected that index would face rejection from its initial resistant region which falls at 45,380pts where 74.6% correction of its last bearish rally would complete but breakout above this region would call for 45,500pts-45,615pts region. It's recommended to stay cautious because hourly and daily stochastic are ready for bearish crossovers and if index would face rejection from above mentioned resistant regions then some serious selling pressure would try to push index in downward direction. On bearish side index would find initial supportive region at 45,000pts which would be followed by 44,860pts-44,700pts region. It's recommended to post trailing stop loss on existing long positions because if index would start sliding downward from this region then short term sentiment would reverse toward bearish side. Overall index would remain range bound until it would not either succeed in closing above 46,200pts or below 44,500pts.

Regional Markets

Asia shares look to China data as global economic recovery hopes underpin world shares

Asian shares were little changed on Friday ahead of a raft of Chinese economic data, while world stocks on the whole flew at a record level, fuelled by strong U.S. economic data that may herald a solid recovery ahead. MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan were little changed while Japan's Nikkei (.N225) ticked up 0.2%. China will release a series of economic data later in the day, including its first-quarter GDP. MSCI's broadest gauge of world stocks stood flat after 0.89 percent gains the previous day to a record high."U.S. economic data released yesterday was all strong, confirming the U.S. economy is firmly on a recovery track," said Norihiro Fujito, chief investment strategist at Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley Securities. Retail sales rebounded 9.8% in March, the largest increase since May 2020, in a gain that pushed the level of sales 17.1% above its pre-pandemic level to a record high.Read More...

Business News

CCoE extends flat tariff for industrial consumers till June 2022

The Cabinet Committee on Energy (CCoE) on Thursday extended the flat electricity tariff to industrial consumers without the application of expensive peak-charges despite concerns of the Power Division. Also it could not resolve a dispute between the power regulator and the Power Division over the future of about 100 Alternative and Renewable Energy (ARE) projects. The meeting of CCoE was presided over by Minister for Planning, Development and Special Initiatives Asad Umar. The CCoE had abolished on Nov 2, 2020 the Time-of-Use (ToU) tariff scheme for industrial consumers. Under this, the peak and off-peak tariff structure was abolished only till April 30, 2021 and a review was to be carried out by March 31, 2021 for its continuation or otherwise beyond April 2021.Read More...

Govt asked to prioritise offshore exploration

The petroleum exploration and development companies on Thursday asked the government to improve the working environment for oil and gas exploration activities by addressing issues relating to security, revocation of their existing blocks and procurement rules. At a round-table meeting with chief executives of the local and foreign exploration companies, a government team led by Minister for Energy Omar Ayub Khan, was also suggested to prioritise offering offshore blocks for auction in the next bidding round to attract more international exploration firms. The representatives of the Mari Petroleum Company suggested to the government to prioritise the offshore blocks in the upcoming bidding round as they had the potential of large oil and gas reserves and offered to coordinate with foreign firms as joint venture partners to facilitate foreign investment.Read More...

Slow execution of foreign-funded projects in Sindh irks NCC-FFP

National Coordination Committee on Foreign-Funded Projects (NCC-FFP) has expressed displeasure over the line departments of Sindh government for slow implementation of foreign-funded projects in the province. Federal Minister for Economic Affairs Makhdum Khusro Bakhtyar chaired the meeting of National Coordination Committee on Foreign-Funded Projects (NCC-FFP) in Sindh province at the Ministry of Economic Affairs. The chair was informed that 27 projects amounting to $ 3.1 billion in communications, transport, energy, water & irrigation, education, health and public private partnership with the support of development partners including Asian Development Bank and World Bank are under implementation. The forum was apprised about the Karachi Mobility, Sindh Agricultural Growth, and Sindh Response to Stunning projects are problematic and facing huge challenges in course of implementation.Read More...

Petroleum prices cut by up to 2.5pc

While increasing the tax rates on certain products, the government on Thursday reduced the prices of all the petroleum products by 1.6 to 2.5pc for the next 15 days to pass on the partial impact of decline in the international prices. According to a notification issued by the ministry of finance, the ex-depot price of petrol was reduced by Re1.79 and that of high-speed diesel (HSD) by Rs2.32 per liter. It reduced the ex-depot price of kerosene and light diesel oil (LDO) by Rs2.06 and Rs2.21 per liter, respectively. As such, the ex-depot rate of HSD was fixed at Rs110.76 per liter instead of Rs113.08 at present, showing a reduction of 2.05pc. Likewise, the ex-depot petrol price was set at Rs108.56 per liter against Rs110.35 at present, down 1.62pc.Read More...