Market watch: Index ends week with another negative session

Benchmark KSE-100 index falls 41.40 points

KARACHI: Lacklustre and directionless trading persisted as the benchmark-100 index swung sideways and remained in the red for the most part to end negative for a third successive session.

It found support near the 32,500 level, but lack of interest from institutions meant there was no clear direction.



At close on Friday, the Pakistan Stock Exchange’s (PSX) KSE-100 index lost 0.13% or 41.40 points to end at 32,669.16.

Elixir Security analyst Ali Raza said Pakistan equities closed marginally negative after listless trading as interest remained selective.

“Stocks opened sideways in early trade following mixed regional markets and drifted lower on thin volumes with benchmark KSE-100 index testing 32,500 during the day,” said Raza.

“Aside from financials and oils, index names garnered little interest from institutional investors, while small and mid-caps also witnessed limited participation from retail investors,” he added.

“Oils closed little changed while reports of foreign selling in Habib Bank Limited (HBL PA -0.77%) and United Bank Limited (UBL PA -0.65%) kept financials under pressure.”

“Nonetheless, late buying in select cements and oils pushed benchmark index to settle only 41 points lower,” said Raza.

Meanwhile, JS Global analyst Ahmed Saeed Khan was of the view that the market remained lacklustre as it juggled between 47.15 points and -187.37 points to finally close at -41.40 points.

“HCAR (-1.91%) and PMSC (-2.62%) closed in the red zone as both the automobile assembler sales showed month-on-month decline for the month of February. On the other hand, INDU (+0.62%) increased despite posting decline in its monthly sales number for the month of February, rallied on back of news that the company has increased prices by Rs20-60k for all its Toyota Corolla models except for Corolla Xli on account of changes in specifications,” he said.



“In the cement sector, investors came in to book their profits as  DGKC (-0.67%), FCCL (-0.65%) and MLCF (-0.38%) all lost value to close in the red zone.

“Selling pressure was seen in PIBTL (-1.50) backed by the news that ECNEC has not cleared Rs13.9bn project of coal conveying system from PIBT to railway network at Port Qasim,” said Saeed.

“Going forward, we recommend investors to buy in dips as market after consolidating at these level could rally during the latter half of the coming week,” he added.

Trading volumes fell to 116 million shares compared with Thursday’s tally of 135 million.

Shares of 317 companies were traded. At the end of the day, 108 stocks closed higher, 175 declined while 34 remained unchanged. The value of shares traded during the day was Rs5.7 billion.

Dewan Cement was the volume leader with 12.3 million shares, gaining Rs0.88 to finish at Rs13.02. It was followed by TRG Pakistan Limited with 11.2 million shares, gaining Rs0.82 to close at Rs28.18 and Pak Electron (R) with 6 million shares, gaining Rs0.58 to close at Rs19.32.

Foreign institutional investors were net sellers of Rs444.2 million worth of shares during the trading session, according to data maintained by the National Clearing Company of Pakistan Limited.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 12^th, 2016.

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