KARACHI: News reports suggesting a substantial abatement in inflationary pressure during the month of September triggered a rush among investors to snap up stock in anticipation of spillover benefits. The State Bank is expected to announce its monetary policy on October 5, and market players expect a further cut in the central bank’s benchmark policy rate.
The Karachi Stock Exchange’s (KSE) benchmark 100-share index gained 0.75% or 115.12 points to end at the 15,559.94 points level. Trade volumes rose to 136 million shares compared with Friday’s tally of 114 million shares. The value of shares traded during the day was Rs4.73 billion.
The market rallied by 0.8% after the announcement of inflation figures for the month of September, which were at a 33-month low, Samar Iqbal, equity dealer at Topline Securities said. “Leveraged companies and dividend-yielding stocks came in the limelight amid expectations of better earnings and higher dividend yields. Banking stocks fell as investors believe that a decline in interest rate will hurt their margins,” she added.
Shares of 361 companies were traded on Monday. At the end of the day 167 stocks closed higher, 140 declined while 54 remained unchanged.
“The KSE-100 index after consolidating for the past few sessions managed to gain ... and ended the day up...,” reported JS Global analyst Shakir Padela. “Pakistan Oilfields closed the day up 1.6% on the news of a discovery in Mamikhel II, which should further help the company’s bottomline grow next year,” he added.
“There were gains in the cement sector, with DG Khan Cement gaining 1.4% today on better-than-expected increase in export sales for the previous month. Fauji Fertilizer Bin Qasim also ended the day on the upper circuit, as sales for the month of September show a significant increase.”
Lafarge Pakistan was the volume leader with 17.26 million shares gaining Rs0.16 to finish at Rs6.01. It was followed by Pakistan Telecommunication Company with 10.64 million shares gaining Rs0.46 to close at Rs19.85 and Dewan Cement with 10.64 million shares gaining Rs0.48 to close at Rs5.38.
Foreign institutional investors were buyers of Rs361.69 million and sellers of Rs391.86 million, according to data maintained by the National Clearing Company of Pakistan Limited.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 2nd, 2012.
COMMENTS
Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive.
For more information, please see our Comments FAQ