Morning Market Brief 18th Jun. 2020

The Benchmark KSE100 index have posted a new weekly & monthly low during last trading session after facing rejection from a horizontal resistant region and had started moving downward again after retesting supportive trend line of its rising wedge. As of now index seems under pressure and it would try to find some ground at 33,580pts where a crossover of a rising trend line is taking place with a horizontal supportive region. As of now it's expected that index would try to take a spike initially and would face resistance between 34,000pts-34,120pts and if it would not succeed in penetration above these regions then it would try to penetrate below its supportive region, meanwhile breakout below 33,500pts would call for 33,000pts where bulls would try their last to take control of market again but in case of breakout below 33,000pts index would enter into bearish zone which would lead it towards 32,500pts and 32,100pts. It's recommended to stay cautious and post strict stop loss on existing long positions because if index would succeed in sliding below its supportive regions then a sharp bearish rally would be witnessed in coming days.

Asian stocks and Wall Street futures fell on Wednesday as spiking coronavirus cases in some U.S. states and China crushed hopes of a quick global economic comeback from the pandemic. S&P 500 mini futures EScv1 fell 1.2% in early Asian trade while MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan .MIAPJ0000PUS lost as much as 1%. Japan's Nikkei .N225 lost 1.3% while in mainland China, bluechip CSI300 shares .CSI300 shed 0.1% in early trade. On Wall Street, the S&P 500 .SPX lost 0.36% on Wednesday but tech-heavy Nasdaq .IXIC added 0.15% due to hopes of increased demand for various online services due to the epidemic.Read More...

Due to low inflows from the centre, Sindh government has red­uced its Annual Develop­ment Plan (ADP) to Rs232.9 billion for FY21, allocating Rs155bn to provincial and Rs15bn to schemes. The provincial government also expects Rs54.6bn from Foreign Projects Assistance and Rs8.3bn from the Federal PSDP for 10 schemes under execution by the Sindh administration. As per the document, the administrative department in Sindh was earlier advised to prepare proposals for provincial ADP FY21 at the size same as that of 2019-20 while allocating 85 per cent for ongoing schemes and 15pc for new ones.Read More...

•10pc increase in salaries of govt employees • Rs34.2bn social protection package • Health, education budgets raised by over 16pc, 10pc • Risk allowance for health personnel fighting Covid-19 • Rs440m allocated for locust control KARACHI: Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah, who also holds the finance portfolio, presented a Rs1,241.13 billion budget with a deficit of Rs18.38bn for the financial year 2020-21 in the provincial assembly on Wednesday. Among the notable figures of the Sindh budget was a 10 per cent across the board increase in the salary of government employees up to grade 16 and five per cent increase in the salary of officials above grade 17.Read More...

The Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) of the Cabinet on Wednesday approved various supplementary grants including for controlling locust and for Pakistan International Airline Corporation Limited. Adviser to the Prime Minister on Finance and Revenue Dr. Abdul Hafeez Shaikh chaired the meeting of the ECC. The ECC has approved technical supplementary grants worth Rs3.2 billion for PIACL (Pakistan International Airline corporation Limited) to discharge the obligations on account of mark-up against GoP guaranteed loans. The ECC has also approved grants of Rs25,206,953 in favour of Pakistan Academy for Rural Development (PARD) Peshawar for the current financial year and Rs1300 million to Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission to discharge its various liabilities. It has approved Rs235 million to Deputy Commissioner Islamabad for making payment of internal security duty allowance to troops of Pakistan Rangers (Punjab) deployed in Islamabad and Rs500 million to the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting to meet the expenditure of media campaign on COVID-19.Read More...

The import of mobile phones into the country has witnessed an increase of 63.17 per cent during the eleven months of financial year (2019-20) as compared to the corresponding period of last year. Pakistan imported mobile phones worth US $1138.641 million during July-May (2019-20) as compared to the imports of $697.813 million during July-May (2018-19), showing growth of 63.17 per cent, according to the latest data issued by Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS). On year-on year basis, the import of mobile phones witnessed increased of 68.76 per cent in May 2020, as compared to the imports of the same month of last year.Read More...