Market watch: Undeterred by foreign selling, KSE-100 surges 434 points

Benchmark index gains 1% to finish trading at 43,702.58

KARACHI: Stocks continued to remain bullish on Tuesday as the KSE-100 Index gained 479 points in intra-day trading, finishing positive for the fourth successive session.

Despite uncertainty pertaining to the Financial Action Task Force's (FATF) action plan about placing Pakistan in grey list over alleged failure to curb terrorism financing and heavy foreign selling, the index remained on upward trajectory throughout the day.

Investors continued to react positively to the caretaker set-up, accumulating stocks at attractive prices. News of former State Bank of Pakistan governor Shamshad Akhtar's appointment as finance minister fuelled midday rally. Five other members of the federal cabinet were also sworn in on Tuesday.

At close, the benchmark KSE 100-share Index recorded an increase of 434.29 points or 1% to settle at 43,702.58.



Elixir Securities' analyst Muhammad Arbash said equities surged on strong domestic liquidity with the benchmark KSE-100 Index settling at 43,702.

"The market opened sideways, exhibited a range bound behaviour until midday and finally switched to the upward trajectory on the back of gains in financial (+2.2%), cement (+1.3%) and oil (+0.7%) stocks," Arbash said.

Listed public gas utilities also carried the momentum from Monday and traded higher after the Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (Ogra) unveiled a market-based tariff regime for them.

Overall, the market witnessed good activity with traded volumes increasing two-thirds compared with a day earlier.

"[We] see flows to guide market direction with the KSE-100 Index possibly finding resistance at the psychological level of 44,000," the analyst added.



Overall, trading volumes increased to 166.5 million shares compared with Monday's tally of 118 million. The value of shares traded during the day was Rs10.3 billion.

Shares of 342 companies were traded. At the end of the day, 194 stocks closed higher, 123 declined while 25 remained unchanged.

The Bank of Punjab was the volume leader with 20.3 million shares, gaining Rs0.22 to close at Rs12.29. It was followed by Pak Elektron with 14.3 million shares, gaining Rs0.61 to close at Rs38.96 and Sui Southern Gas Company with 13.6 million shares, gaining Rs1.54 to close at Rs38.21.

Foreign institutional investors were net sellers of Rs1 billion worth of shares during the trading session, according to data compiled by the National Clearing Company of Pakistan.