Market watch: KSE-100 rises in roller-coaster session

Benchmark index crawls up 54.04 points to settle at 47,419.74

KARACHI:

The Pakistan Stock Exchange experienced a roller-coaster session on Tuesday and the KSE-100 index posted a gain of 54 points as bulls and bears locked horns to take control of the bourse.

The reaffirmation of Pakistan’s sovereign credit rating of “B-/B” by S&P with a stable outlook revived investors’ confidence in local equities and drove the buying activity.

On the other hand, investors’ concerns over fresh depreciation of the rupee against the US dollar capped gains.

Earlier, trading began on a positive note and the KSE-100 index climbed close to the 47,600-point mark, however, volatility emerged later, which erased some of the gains.

Investors made another attempt to lift the market at midday but profit-booking pulled it downwards. The fall accelerated in the final hour but still the index managed to close the session on a positive note.

At close, the benchmark KSE-100 index recorded an increase of 54.04 points, or 0.11%, to settle at 47,419.74.

JS Global analyst Neelam Naz said that a historic day was witnessed at the bourse as Pakistan’s largest IPO of Air Link Communication was oversubscribed by 1.6 times.

“The benchmark index rose to touch intra-day high of +230 points during the day,” she said. “However, across-the-board profit-taking wiped out nearly all of the gains as the KSE-100 closed the session at 47,420 (up 54 points).”

Traded volume stood at 379 million shares with Telecard Limited (+3.5%), Ghani Global Holdings (+7.3%), Byco Petroleum (-1%), Treet Corp (-0.8%) and Pak Elektron (+7.4%) leading the chart.

“Going forward, we recommend investors to adopt a buy-on-dip strategy in bank, steel and textile sectors,” the analyst said.

Overall trading fell to 378.8 million shares compared with Monday’s tally of 382.6 million. The value of shares traded during the day was Rs14 billion.

Shares of 524 companies were traded. At the end of the day, 248 stocks closed higher, 244 declined and 32 remained unchanged.

Telecard Limited was the volume leader with 41.6 million shares, gaining Rs0.66 to close at Rs19.46. It was followed by Ghani Global Holdings with 32.7 million shares, gaining Rs2.93 to close at Rs42.98 and Byco Petroleum with 21.7 million shares, losing Rs0.1 to close at Rs9.93.

Foreign institutional investors were net sellers of Rs144.3 million worth of shares during the trading session, according to data compiled by the National Clearing Company of Pakistan.