Market watch: Index settles at all-time high with surging volumes

Benchmark KSE 100-share Index increases 52.06 points

KARACHI: The benchmark-100 index continued to face resistance around the 40,200-point mark, losing its early-morning momentum to finish with trimmed gains on Thursday.

However, the increase was enough for the index to record a fresh, all-time high of 40,137 points amid volumes that topped 500 million.

After two days of hefty gains, which saw the KSE-100 Index increase close to 2%, the wider market struggled to keep pace and opted to book profits ahead of Eid holidays next week.



At close on Thursday, the Pakistan Stock Exchange’s benchmark-100 index recorded a gain of 0.13% or 52.06 points to end at 40,136.93.

Elixir Securities analyst Ali Raza said equities took a breather and closed marginally positive after early gains that pushed benchmark KSE-100 index to an all-time high of 40,290 fizzled out on profit-taking.

“Stocks opened gap up carrying momentum from Wednesday with oils and select index names supporting the upward drive for a brief period,” said Raza.

“The wider market, however, could not keep up and the KSE-100 index steadily declined to fill the gap before mid-day and thereafter traded volatile in a narrow range with participants booking gains in recent winners.

“Cements and select financials corrected with DG Khan Cement (DGKC, -0.7%), Maple Leaf (MLCF,-1.6%) and Fauji Cement (FCCL, -0.96%) while MCB Bank (MCB, -0.35%) and Habib Bank (HBL, 0.88%) also closing in the red after a positive open.”

JS Global analyst Ahmed Saeed Khan said volatility prevailed as the index juggled between -32 points and +205 points to close at the all-time high level of 40,137.

“Rally in the automobile sector was witnessed on the back of depreciating Yen before Japanese Central Bank policy decision on Friday. The top performer of the aforementioned sector was Indus Motor (+5.00%).

“Pressure remained in the pharmaceutical sector, where GLAXO (-1.23%) was the major decliner of the day. Positivity in the oil sector prevailed on the back of surging global crude oil prices, as OGDC (+0.49%) rallied.”

Trade volumes rose to 565.9 million shares compared with Wednesday’s tally of 498 million.



Shares of 443 companies were traded. At the end of the day, 214 stocks closed higher, 213 declined while 16 remained unchanged. The value of shares traded during the day was Rs16.2 billion.

Pace (Pakistan) Limited was the volume leader with 50.5 million shares, gaining Rs0.32 to finish at Rs8.60. It was followed by Dewan Salman with 48.7 million shares, gaining Rs1.00 to close at Rs4.98 and Azgard Nine with 34.1 million shares, gaining Rs0.98 to close at Rs5.69.

Foreign institutional investors were net buyers of Rs342 million during the trading session, according to data maintained by the National Clearing Company of Pakistan Limited.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 9^th, 2016.

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