Market Watch: Stock market ends the week on a high

KSE’s benchmark 100-share index gains 53 points.

KARACHI: The stock market ended the week on a positive note after gaining 0.4% in Friday’s session amid healthy volumes.

The Karachi Stock Exchange’s (KSE) benchmark 100-share index gained 0.44 per cent or 52.84 points to end at 11,982.62 point level.

The rally was supported by rumours of promised conversion of circular debt into Term Finance Certificates by the government, said JS Global Capital analyst Shakir Padela.

Trade volumes gained to 130 million shares compared with Thursday’s tally of 108 million shares. Refineries saw some renewed buying interest on the back of better than expected result, improving margins and benefits from resolution of the circular debt, added Padela.

The fertiliser sector closed marginally negative on account of profit taking with Engro falling 0.02% and Fauji Fertilizer Company declining 1% to resume its negative course on rumours of decline in local fertiliser prices.

Fauji Fertilizer Bin Qasim after posting phenomenal results of net profit doubling in 2011 now faces a gloomy fate as falling international DAP price is expected to hurt the bottom-line going forward. International DAP price is already down 16% from their 2011 peak.

It was a day for second and third tier stocks with Jahangir Siddiqui and Company alone churning 38% volume of the benchmark index.

Jahangir Siddiqui and Company was the volume leader with 33.1 million shares gaining Rs0.69 to finish at Rs7.46. It was followed by Azgard Nine with 13.0 million shares firming Rs0.37 to close at Rs4.29 and DG Khan Cement with 6.51 million shares increasing Rs0.79 to close at Rs24.22. Foreign institutional investors were buyers of Rs156 million and sellers of Rs238 million worth of shares, according to data maintained by the National Clearing Company of Pakistan Limited.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 4^th, 2012.