Market Watch: Bourse tumbles to 16-week low

KSE’s benchmark 100-share index dips 111 points.


Express December 16, 2011

KARACHI:


The stock market tumbled to a 16-week low on Friday as foreigners continue to pull out their funds.


The Karachi Stock Exchange’s (KSE) benchmark 100-share index dropped one percent or 111.38 points to end at 11,028.14 point level.

The benchmark index did recover 100 odd points in the second half of the trading session as the market was down more than 200 points down at midday.

Local investors seemed to be on the sidelines throughout the week due to ongoing uncertainty on the memogate issue, said Topline Securities equity dealer Samar Iqbal.

Foreign institutional investors were net sellers of Rs154 million worth of shares, according to data maintained by the National Clearing Company of Pakistan Limited.

Engro Corporation led the volumes charts with reported foreign selling that is keeping locals cautious despite a whopping 25% decline this month alone, said Elixir Securities equity dealer Faisal Bilwani.

Almost all main banking stocks closed in the ‘red’ as Moody’s reiterated their outlook for Pakistan banks as negative. Pakistan Petroleum Limited managed to close in the positive as expectations of higher earnings due to increase in productions flows, said analysts.

DG Khan Cement dropped 5.12% after cement sales numbers depicting seasonal slowdown, however, investors do expect lower exports to Afghanistan in the near future. There are also rumours of increase in taxes for cement dealers however our channel checks couldn’t confirm the same.

Trade volumes fell to paltry level of 48 million shares compared with Thursday’s tally of 52 million shares.

Shares of 317 companies were traded on the last trading session of the week. At the end of the day 54 stocks closed higher, 159 declined while 104 remained unchanged. The value of shares traded during the day was Rs2 billion.

Engro Corporation was the volume leader with 4.86 million shares declining Rs2.35 to finish at Rs96.73. It was followed by Lotte Pakistan PTA with 4.12 million shares falling Rs0.09 to close at Rs8.68 and Fatima Fertilizer with 2.92 million losing Rs0.24 to close at Rs21.26.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 17th, 2011.

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