Market watch: KSE-100 extends gains with 492-point rise

Benchmark index advances 1.06% to settle at 46,867.95

KARACHI:

The bullish spell continued at the Pakistan Stock Exchange for another session on Tuesday and the benchmark KSE-100 index notched up gains of over 1,000 points in the past two sessions.

Encouraging remittances data, which showed more than $2 billion worth of inflows for the eighth successive month in January 2021, triggered a buying spree at the bourse. As a result, index-heavy automobile, cement, financial and fertiliser sectors were in the limelight and attracted fresh investment.

Taking cue from a rally in international crude oil prices, market participants made new investment in exploration and production stocks, which aided the uptrend.

Earlier, trading began with a spike and the market remained on the uptrend throughout the day. Late session buying inflated the gains and helped the market close above the 46,500-point mark.

At close, the benchmark KSE-100 index recorded an increase of 492.36 points, or 1.06%, to settle at 46,867.95 points.

Arif Habib Limited, in its report, stated that the market added a total of 509 points during the session and ended near that level.

Brisk buying was observed in the cement sector for the third day in a row that made a major contribution to the points table. Similar activity was witnessed in steel and technology sectors.

Among banks, HBL saw buying in anticipation of annual results scheduled to be announced on Wednesday. The stock closed near the session high, the report said.

JS Global analyst Danish Ladhani said that the KSE-100 index remained bullish, touching a high of +509 points and finally closing at 46,868, up 1.1% or 492 points.

Sectors leading the index movement were cement and financial where Lucky Cement (+4.9%), Maple Leaf Cement (+2.4%), DG Khan Cement (+2.7%), MCB Bank (+2.6%) and HBL (+2.3%) closed in the green.

The power generation sector was the major laggard with Hubco (-0.5%), Nishat Power (-0.5%) and K-Electric (-0.2%) closing in the red.

The market remained positive throughout the trading session with sideboard stocks in the limelight, the analyst said.

Oil and Gas Development Company (+1.5%) and Pakistan Petroleum (+1%) gained ground as oil prices hovered near 13-month highs in the international market. Furthermore, Ghani Global Glass (-0.1%) announced 1HFY21 earnings per share of Rs0.58.

“Looking at Tuesday’s trend, we believe the next session shall see a bull run. We recommend investors to sell on strength,” the analyst said.

Overall trading volumes rose to 514.2 million shares compared with Monday’s tally of 486.4 million. The value of shares traded during the day was Rs25.4 billion.

Shares of 417 companies were traded. At the end of the day, 244 stocks closed higher, 160 declined and 13 remained unchanged.

Hum Network was the volume leader with 55.5 million shares, gaining Re1 to close at Rs7.11. It was followed by Telecard Limited with 55.4 million shares, gaining Re1 to close at Rs7.63 and Maple Leaf Cement with 36.2 million shares, gaining Rs1.13 to close at Rs48.23.

Foreign institutional investors were net sellers of Rs115.8 million worth of shares during the trading session, according to data compiled by the National Clearing Company of Pakistan.