Market watch: Foreign investors buy as index gains 0.15%

KSE 100-share Index rises 71.82 points to end at 48,227.75

KARACHI: Stocks endured another volatile ride with volumes drying up in anticipation on the Panama case verdict, with the benchmar-100 index gaining 71.82 points or 0.15% on Monday.

Stocks opened positive, before investors decided to book profits and stay on the sidelines with activity limited to select scrips.

At close, the Pakistan Stock Exchange's (PSX) benchmark KSE 100-share Index recorded a rise of 71.82 points or 0.15% to end at 48,227.75.

According to Elixir Securities, the market carried the momentum from late evening on Friday and traded positive in early hour; however, the index couldn't sustain gains for long and witnessed profit-taking.



"Activity overall was significantly lower with the inflation reading failing to ignite interest," said analyst Ali Raza.

"On the leaderboard, United Bank (UBL PA +3%) came on top on reported foreign buying as stock churned most volumes since mid-December. Bank of Punjab (BOP PA -4.2%) remained day's laggard, closing another session in red after bank announced rights shares last week.

"In autos, Indus Motors (INDU PA +5%) hit the upper price limit on announcement of expansion plans, while Pakistan Suzuki Motors (PSMC PA -0.5%) closed marginally negative," he added.

Meanwhile, JS Research analyst Nabeel Haroon said the market opened on a positive note and retained its previous swing.



"Mixed sentiment was witnessed in the banking sector where pressure was seen in the sector across the board during the initial hours of trade but later on some recovery came on the back of Consumer Price Index numbers that clocked in at 4.94% for the month of March," he said.

"In the aforementioned sector, (UBL +3.02%) and (MCB +0.48%) managed to close in the green zone, whereas (HBL -0.63%) closed lower. (INDU 5.00%) and (HACR 3.78%) in the automobile gained to close in the green zone.

"(HASCOL -2.32%) extended its loss on the back of its 2016 result announcement on Friday in which company posted EPS of Rs10.07 along with a final cash dividend of Rs3.5/share taking the total payout for 2016 to Rs7/share," he added.



Overall, trading volumes fell to 159.9 million shares compared with Friday's tally of 273 million.

Shares of 380 companies were traded. At the end of the day, 137 stocks closed higher, 229 declined while 14 remained unchanged. The value of shares traded during the day was Rs9.6 billion.

Aisha Steel Mill was the volume leader with 15.9 million shares, gaining Rs0.1 to close at Rs25.45. It was followed by the Bank of Punjab with 11.8 million shares, losing Rs0.6 to close at Rs13.84 and Azgard Nine with 11.4 million shares, losing Rs0.35 to close at Rs13.01.

Foreign institutional investors were net buyers of Rs579 million during the trading session, according to data maintained by the National Clearing Company of Pakistan Limited.