Market Watch: KSE closes fiscal year on a mixed note

Benchmark KSE-100 index falls 10 points.

KARACHI:

The last trading session of the fiscal year 2012-13 saw the Karachi stock market close just above the 21,000 level amidst volatility as the bourse failed to churn in decent volumes in the past week. Investors preferred to stay on the sidelines before they take fresh positions in the new fiscal year.

The Karachi Stock Exchange’s (KSE) benchmark 100-share index shed 0.05% or 9.65 points to end at 21,005.69 point level. Trade volumes remained low, gaining nominally to touch 152 million shares, compared with Thursday’s tally of 147 million shares.

Shares of 327 companies were traded on Friday. At the end of the day 146 stocks closed higher, 130 declined while 51 remained unchanged. The value of shares traded during the day was Rs6.87 billion.



Activity was dull on the last trading session before the start of the new fiscal year, reported Samar Iqbal, head of equity sales at Topline Securities. Most institutions, too, preferred to stay on the sidelines and refused to venture after closing of the best performing quarter for the bourse since first quarter of 2012.



As expected, the oil and gas sector kept the mood upbeat owing to new discovery by Pakistan Petroleum and Thursday’s decision of the Economic Coordination Committee to settle major chunk of the circular debt. However, the decision did not translate into a bigger impact as the oil and energy stocks remain overbought due to expected settlement.

Pakistan Telecommunication Company led the volume charts as investors anticipate a serious jump in earnings on reported higher minutes for the quarter and rumours of a possible acquisition of Warid by the company.

Index heavyweights MCB Bank and the Oil and Gas Development Company fell and took the bourse with them to close in the red.

Pakistan Telecommunication Company was the volume leader with 23.92 million shares gaining Rs0.99 to finish at Rs22.19. It was followed by Fauji Cement with 6.82 million shares falling Rs0.05 to close at Rs13.29 and Bank of Punjab with 6.67 million shares climbing Rs0.54 to close at Rs12.74.

Foreign institutional investors were net sellers of Rs324 million, according to data maintained by the National Clearing Company of Pakistan.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 29^th, 2013.

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