Market watch: Stocks bounce back, snap four-day losing streak

KSE 100-share Index rises 678.50 points to end at 49,283.64

KARACHI: The KSE 100-share Index snapped its losing streak of the past four sessions and notched up smart gains on Thursday.

Led by banking, oil and cement sectors, the index continued to pick up momentum throughout the day, rising around 765 points in intra-day trading, before falling slightly.

At close, the Pakistan Stock Exchange's (PSX) benchmark KSE 100-share Index recorded a rise of 678.50 points, or 1.40%, to end at 49,283.64.

Elixir Securities, in its report, stated the MSCI upgrade euphoria finally kicked in as Pakistan equities broke their four-day negative run and bounced back on across-the-board buying that pushed the benchmark beyond 49,000 and higher by 679 points.



"Aggressive local institutional accumulation ahead of MSCI transition (for Pakistan's market from frontier to emerging status) helped counter the negativity and anxiety that was shrouding the market while sellers found an easy exit due to better-than-average turnover, which also helped regain confidence," said analyst Faisal Bilwani.

"Thursday's gains were mostly led by MSCI names as index-heavy Habib Bank (+2.2%) topped the charts. Engro Corp (+3.1%), Lucky Cement (+2.1%), MCB Bank (+2.6%) and United Bank (+1.77%) were also among the top gainers," he said.

Activity in mid and small-caps also spiked as retail investors followed the trail of flows and built positions. Engro Polymer (+5%) was the darling stock as it not only hit an all-time high, but also emerged as the volumes leader on improving business prospects.



"[We] Expect the market to carry on the momentum and march higher in coming days with index names leading the drive as the MSCI upgrade draws nearer," the analyst added.

JS Global analyst Arhum Ghous said the market finally broke its bearish streak as the KSE-100 index rebounded to close at 49,283.

"OMC (oil marketing companies) sector gained to close higher than the previous day as oil sales rose 16% month-on-month to 2.22 million tons in April. Attock Petroleum (+2.73%) and Hascol (+0.98%) were major movers of the sector as impressive growth of 57% and 54% year-on-year respectively was recorded in their sales volumes," said Ghous.



"Moving forward, we expect the market to continue its positive trend and recommend investors to sell on strength," he added.

Overall, trading volumes rose to 287 million shares compared with Wednesday's tally of 260 million.

Shares of 394 companies were traded. At the end of the day, 249 stocks closed higher and 132 declined while 13 remained unchanged. The value of shares traded during the day was Rs15.4 billion.

Engro Polymer was the volume leader with 39.2 million shares, gaining Rs1.44 to close at Rs30.36. It was followed by Invest Bank with 20 million shares, losing Rs1 to close at Rs3.98 and Aisha Steel Mills with 14.9 million shares, losing Rs0.28 to close at Rs23.67.

Foreign institutional investors were net sellers of Rs721 million during the trading session, according to data maintained by the National Clearing Company of Pakistan Limited.