KARACHI: Thursday saw greater participation at the stock market as investors trickled back into the market for the corporate results announcements season. The market rallied to an intraday high of 14,500 points before investors chose to cash in on inflated levels; leaving the market to close with only marginal gains.
Ahsan Mehanti from Arif Habib Corp said that: “Stocks closed higher amid cautious activity by investors before the Supreme Court’s reaction on NRO judgement implementation. Profit taking witnessed in the corporate earnings announcement session.”
“Institutional support was witnessed in blue chip stocks in oil, banking and cement sectors...” he added.
The Karachi Stock Exchange’s (KSE) benchmark 100-share index gained 0.15% or 21.28 points to end at the 14,401.74 points level.
“The KSE-100 index opened the day positively after news flows on developments regarding relaxation of rules relating to margin financing,” reported Shakir Padela, analyst at JS Global.
Trade volumes improved to 109 million shares compared with Wednesday’s tally of 81 million shares. The value of shares traded during the day improved to Rs4.63 billion from Rs2.37 billion the day before. Harris Ahmed Batla, analyst at Elixir Securities, attributed the surge in volumes to the start of the corporate results season.
Shares of 362 companies were traded on Thursday. At the end of the day 163 stocks closed higher, 107 declined while 92 remained unchanged.
“Cements continued to steal the show on volume charts, with DG Khan Cement trading 12 million shares as traders betted on higher earnings on the back of recent robust cement off-take,” added Batla. “Engro Foods played a vital role in the sentimental shift, closing down on its lower circuit as traders booked profits following a recent rise of 14% [in the stock’s price] over the last five sessions. Bank and oil stocks witnessed mixed sentiments with average contributions to volumes.”
DG Khan Cement was the volume leader with 12.39 million shares gaining Rs0.12 to finish at Rs43.06. It was followed by Engro Foods with 7.90 million shares losing Rs3.55 to close at Rs69.86 and Fauji Cement with 5.51 million shares losing Rs0.10 to close at Rs5.79.
Foreign institutional investors were net buyers of Rs74.59 million, according to data maintained by the National Clearing Company of Pakistan Limited.
Published in The Express Tribune, July 13th, 2012.
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