Morning Market Brief 23rd Apr. 2020

The Benchmark KSE100 index have caged in a range bound situation after getting support from a strong horizontal supportive region of 31,900pts during last trading session and had formatted a hammer on daily chart. It needs to be very cautious because index could try to format a morning shooting star in response of previous bearish engulfing and if this formation would took place then a cheat pattern would try to push index beyond 34,000pts in coming days. For current trading session index have supportive regions ahead at 32,000pts and 31,760pts while on the other side it would face initial resistances at 32,860pts and in case of breakout above this region index would face strong resistance at 33,500pts.

Asian stock markets rose on Thursday as the combination of a rebound in crude prices from historic lows and the promise of more U.S. government aid to cushion the coronavirus-ravaged economy helped calm nervous markets. MSCI’s broadest index of Asia Pacific shares outside of Japan bounced from two-week lows to be up 0.5% at 460.43 points. Australian S&P/ASX added 0.4%, Chinese shares opened firm with the blue-chip index up 0.3%. Japan’s Nikkei climbed 0.8%. The gains followed a strong overnight lead from Wall Street with the Dow up 2%, S&P 500 adding 2.3% and Nasdaq rising 2.8%. All 11 S&P 500 sector indexes climbed as the U.S. Senate unanimously approved the new relief package, adding to trillions of dollars in stimulus that has helped Wall Street rebound from its March lows.Read More...

The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) on Wednesday announced another incentive package to help businesses avoid layoffs while directing banks to provide refinancing at zero per cent. “These additional incentives include relaxations in collateral requirements, further reduction in end-user rate, reimbursement of wages, special accounts for employees to receive wages, borrowing from banks other than maintaining payrolls, simplification of application form for small and medium enterprises and bank’s exposure limits,” said the SBP.Read More...

The rupee gained once again on Wednesday to reach Rs159.50 against the US dollar. Currency dealers said the greenback was traded as low as Rs159 but closed at Rs159.50. The dollar has been falling against the local currency since last Friday when it lost Rs3. The US dollar further lost Rs2.36 on Tuesday and about Rs1.50 on Wednesday. The Rs159.5 was the highest level since March 24. The rupee had declined to Rs167.9 against the dollar on April 7 but has gained five per cent or Rs8.4 against dollar since then.Read More...

The Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) of the Cabinet has approved release of Rs75 billion from PM’s Relief Package of Rs200 billion for targeted payments to the low-income groups, especially labourers and daily wagers most severely affected by the lockdown situation in the country. The ECC meeting, chaired by Adviser to the Prime Minister on Finance and Revenue Abdul Hafeez Shaikh, has approved a mechanism for disbursement of payment among daily wage earners. Under the decision, disbursement of Rs 12,000/- per selected person would be made using the Ehsaas disbursement mechanisms under a programme called “Mazdoor Ka Ehsaas Programme”. For this purpose, a fourth category in addition to already existing three categories in “Ehsaas Kifalat”, would be created and standard filters/checks of Ehsaas Program would be applied for identification of the beneficiaries.Read More...

Pakistan’s exports of non-textile products shrank 12.64 per cent year-on-year to $774 million in March, due to cancellation and delays of orders amid coronavirus-related closures in major export markets. In the pre-Covid-19 period, an upward trend was noticed in the exports of non-textile products, largely driven by depreciation of the rupee. Few value-added sectors have still maintained growth in proceeds despite lockdown such as leather garments, footwear, surgical instruments and engineering goods. The Ministry of Commerce is focusing on exports of textile products and is providing maximum cash subsidies. However, the non-textile sectors, which represent mostly small exporters, have largely remained uncatered.Read More...