Market watch Foreigners turn buyers as KSE-100 rises 484 points

Benchmark index gains 1.15% to finish trading at 42,622.74

KARACHI: The stock market continued to show signs of recovery as it performed remarkably well on Tuesday with the benchmark index advancing 529 points in intra-day trading and ending its second successive session in the black.

In the morning, the KSE-100 Index opened on a negative note, but the decline proved short-lived. With clarity on the political front, bullish sentiments helped the index maintain an upward trajectory.

The rally was mostly led by institutional investors who bought stocks particularly in cement, steel, bank and fertiliser sectors.

Insight Securities’ analyst Zeshan Afzal said a smooth political transition helped the market close at higher levels.

At close, the benchmark KSE 100-share Index recorded an increase of 484.16 points or 1.15% to settle at 42,622.74.



JS Global analyst Maaz Mulla said the market exhibited recovery as value investors took the opportunity to buy stocks at attractive prices.

He said the KSE-100 Index touched an intra-day high of 529 points to close at 42,623. Volumes remained lacklustre reaching 120 million shares for the day compared to 139 million on Monday.

TRG Pakistan (+3.71%) from the tech sector led the volumes as 11 million shares were exchanged in the stock.

Sector-wise, the cement sector led the gains where DG Khan Cement (+2.84%), Lucky Cement (+2.43%), Fauji Cement (+2.10%) and Maple Leaf Cement (+1.51%) closed in the green zone.

Commercial bank heavyweights moved up and big banks boosted the index by 111 points. MCB Bank (+2.70%), Habib Bank (+2.09%) and United Bank (+0.37%) were major movers of the banking sector.

The fertiliser sector showed a positive momentum on the back of strong urea offtake that grew 50% in April 2018 compared with the same period of previous year. Fauji Fertiliser Bin Qasim (+4.68%) and Engro Fertiliser (+1.25%) were major gainers of the sector.

“Moving forward, we expect the market to remain range bound with flows from local and foreign institutions guiding direction,” the analyst added.



Overall, shares of 356 companies were traded. At the end of the day, 232 stocks closed higher, 100 declined while 24 remained unchanged.

Trading volumes decreased to 120.3 million shares compared with Monday’s tally of 139.3 million. The value of shares traded during the day was Rs5.2 billion.

TRG Pakistan was the volume leader with 11.4 million shares, gaining Rs0.98 to close at Rs27.40. It was followed by Pak Elektron with 10 million shares, gaining Rs1.79 to close at Rs37.67 and Lotte Chemical with 6.4 million shares, gaining Rs0.63 to close at Rs10.97.

Foreign institutional investors were net buyers of Rs407.2 million worth of shares during the trading session, according to data compiled by the National Clearing Company of Pakistan.