Market watch: KSE-100 crawls up as political clarity emerges

Benchmark index gains 64.49 points to finish at 42,138.58

KARACHI: The stock market experienced a see-saw session on first trading day of the week as the index oscillated between red and green zones and later ended trading on a positive note.

After opening positive, the KSE-100 Index slipped 200 points to below 41,900. However, recovery emerged in the latter half as news of an agreement on the name of caretaker prime minister helped the index move higher.

With matters settled, investors resorted to stock purchase, pushing the index up 469 points that hit an intra-day high of 42,543.27. Despite the central bank's announcement of a hike in key interest rate, the performance of banking sector remained sluggish. These stocks rallied in early hours, but later succumbed to profit-taking.

At close on Monday, the benchmark KSE 100-share Index recorded an increase of 64.49 points or 0.15% to settle at 42,138.58.

JS Global analyst Maaz Mulla said the market remained negative in first half of the day, however, recovery was witnessed in the second half.



"This recovery came after the former chief justice Nasirul Mulk was announced as the caretaker prime minister. The market remained lacklustre, though investors' interest was witnessed in the banking space as the State Bank of Pakistan in its May 2018 monetary policy statement announced an increase of 50 basis points in the policy rate to 6.50% for the next two months," Mulla said.

United Bank (-0.39%), MCB Bank (-0.70%), Habib Bank (-0.05%) and National Bank (-1.95%) cumulatively took away 29 points from the index.

The exploration and production sector lost value as crude oil prices fell to trade at $66.71 per barrel in the international market.

Oil and Gas Development Company (-2.02%), Pakistan Oilfields (-1.11%) and Pakistan Petroleum (-1.11%) were major losers of the sector.

Negative sentiments were noted in the cement sector where Maple Leaf Cement (-2.30%), DG Khan Cement (-1.45%) and Cherat Cement (-0.70%) fell.



"Moving forward, we expect the market to remain volatile with flows from local institutions and foreigners guiding direction," the analyst added.

Overall, shares of 343 companies were traded. At the end of the day, 193 stocks closed higher, 128 declined while 22 remained unchanged.

Trading volumes increased to 139.3 million shares compared with Friday's tally of 109.7 million. The value of shares traded during the day was Rs6.4 billion.

Pak Elektron was the volume leader with 16.13 million shares, gaining Rs1.55 to close at Rs35.88. It was followed by TRG Pakistan with 9.35 million shares, gaining Rs0.69 to close at Rs26.42 and Unity Foods with 8.36 million shares, losing Rs0.59 to close at Rs27.52.

Foreign institutional investors were net sellers of Rs970.4 million worth of shares during the trading session, according to data compiled by the National Clearing Company of Pakistan.