Market watch: New week, new high for index

Benchmark KSE-100 index gains 284.03 points.

KARACHI: Index gained strength on the back of further rupee appreciation in the interbank market as investors expected exchange gains to further augment earnings in the coming quarters.

The Karachi Stock Exchange’s (KSE) benchmark 100-share index rose 1.06% or 284.03 points to end at 27,176.26.

“Pakistan State Oil (PSO PA +4.8%) drove the market, Pakistan Oilfields (POL PA +1.8%) gained strength on morning news of Pakistan local oil flows to considerably improve in the coming year,”  said Naveen Yaseen of Elixir Securities.



“Nishat Mills (NML PA -2.3%) witnessed profit taking as stronger rupee made exports uncompetitive. Cements gained strength after the previous depressed trading sessions with Lucky Cement (LUCK PA +2.2%) supporting the index on rumours of cement price hike in the North region.

“We expect momentum to continue with sectors like cement and banking to be in the focus along with oil names including OGDC, POL and APL to drive the KSE-100 index,” concluded Yaseen.

Meanwhile, Ovais Ahsan of JS Global said the bulls continued to dominate proceedings as the Oil and Gas sector propelled the index above 27,000.

“Engro Foods (+5%) hit the limit up in anticipation of a turnaround in the first quarter of this year as the food company is expected to overcome its distribution related problems and has registered some success with pilot projects namely its ‘Mabrook’ loose milk retail network.

“Information Technology/outsourcing company TRG (+6.2%) topped the volume chart with 19 million shares,” said Ahsan.

Trade volumes rose to 244 million shares compared to Friday’s tally of 206 million.

Shares of 385 companies were traded on Monday. At the end of the day, 199 stocks closed higher, 172 declined and 14 remained unchanged. The value of shares traded during the day was Rs12.4 billion.



TRG Pakistan Limited was the volume leader with 19.1 million shares, gaining Rs1.00 to finish at Rs17.02. It was followed by Byco Petroleum with 17.2 million shares, gaining Rs0.75 to close at Rs11.32 and Maple Leaf Cement with 16.4 million shares, gaining Rs0.80 to close at Rs30.06.

Foreign institutional investors were net sellers of Rs244 million worth of shares, according to data compiled by the National Clearing Company of Pakistan Limited.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 11^th, 2014.

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