Market watch: Index inches over 39,900

Benchmark KSE-100 index rises 134.6 points

KARACHI: The benchmark-100 index continued its positive ride, finishing close to the 40,000-point barrier despite intra-day profit-booking making its way to dent the momentum.

At close on Friday, the Pakistan Stock Exchange’s benchmark KSE-100 index rose 0.34% or 134.60 points to end at 39,926.70.

Elixir Securities analyst Ali Raza said equities closed the week positive after trading volatile with benchmark KSE-100 index settling above 39,900 after shying away from testing 40,000 intra-day.



“Volumes and turnover both picked up, however, most activity was concentrated in small and mid-cap plays with top 10 stocks on KSE-100 index being priced lower than Rs70. Market opened positive and managed to stay in green throughout the day despite witnessing intra-day profit taking particularly by oils, fertilisers and select blue chips.

“Index heavy Hub Power (HUBC +2.3%) surged on buying interest reportedly from local institutions and contributed most to day’s gains. Dawood Hercules (DAWH +4%) added second most points to KSE-100 index after the holding company announced higher than expected cash pay-out.

“National Bank came third in line as the bank announced first half earnings that beat street consensus.”

Meanwhile JS Global analyst Nabeel Haroon said the market continued its positive momentum.  “Indus Motor (INDU +1.22%) in the automobile sector gained as the company declared better than expected FY16 result. In its financial result company posted earnings of Rs145.74 per share along with a final cash dividend of Rs40 per share taking the full year pay-out to Rs100 per share.

“Investor interest was seen in NBP as the banking company posted 25% year-on-year growth in its 1H2016 result announced on Friday.

“Moving forward we expect the market to continue its bullish momentum.”

Trade volumes rose to 362 million shares compared with Thursday’s tally of 298 million shares.



Shares of 406 companies were traded on Friday. At the end of the day 220 stocks closed higher, 164 declined while 22 remained unchanged. The value of shares traded during the day was Rs15 billion.

Dewan Cement was the volume leader with 29.2 million shares gaining Rs1 to finish at Rs19.55. It was followed by Pace (Pak) Limited with 23.2 million shares, gaining Rs0.47 to close at Rs7.17 and K-Electric with 22.8 million shares, losing Rs0.04 to close at Rs8.88.

Foreign institutional investors were net buyers of Rs506 million during the trade session, according to data maintained by the National Clearing Company of Pakistan Limited.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 27^th, 2016.

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