Bulls enter the market after a week

Bulls entered the stock market after a full week as investors bought shares at lower levels, dealers said.

The Karachi Stock Exchange (KSE) benchmark 100-share index ended 0.31 per cent or 30.56 points up at 9,823.37.

The week saw heavy battering as the KSE-100 index fell by 4.8 per cent amid concerns that the flood will severely affect economic growth and corporate earnings.

The ministry of finance and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have already hinted that this year’s GDP growth target of 4.5 per cent will likely be missed on account of possible significant damage to crops from the floods.

Local activity will likely pick up by mid-Ramazan which will probably be spurred by possible announcement of the leverage product, said Elixir Securities dealer Sara Shahid.

Local brokerage houses admit current volumes are not sustainable to their business and are hoping some trigger may up the volumes in the coming days, added Shahid.

Trade volumes increased but were still at a paltry level of 31.96 million shares compared with Thursday’s tally of 25.54 million shares as interest stayed at a minimum especially over delayed margin financing, uncertainty over actual damage caused by the floods and the beginning of Ramazan.

Pakistan Oilfields, Hub Power Company (Hubco), Engro, D G Khan Cement, Lucky Cement and National Bank were the major movers of the day.

Oil stocks edged slightly higher as investors bet on Pakistan Oilfields results to be higher than its peers that have been below par.

Shares of 309 companies were traded on Friday. At the end of the day, 137 stocks closed higher while 158 declined and 14 remained unchanged. The value of shares traded during the day was Rs1.16 trillion.

Hubco was the volume leader with 5.47 million shares on talk of foreign institutional investment interest in the scrip as well as buy interest from some local mutual funds. The stock gained Rs0.95 to close at Rs37.01. It was followed by Arif Habib Securities, whose payout was lower than market expectations, with 4.1 million shares losing Rs1.42 to close at Rs27.14. D G Khan Cement came in third with 2.04 million shares gaining Rs0.33 to close at Rs25.54.

Published in The  Express Tribune, August 14^th, 2010.