Market watch: Bourse climbs led by oil, telecom sectors

Benchmark KSE-100 index surges 71 points.

KARACHI: The stock market continued its upward trend on Tuesday following the announcement of the new petroleum policy and rumours of a major change in the telecom sector operations.

The Karachi Stock Exchange’s (KSE) benchmark 100-share index rose 0.47 per cent or 70.99 points to end at 15,242.65 points level.

Index heavyweight Oil and Gas Development Company and Pakistan Petroleum Limited led the climb following announcement of an increase of 60% in prices for exploration companies for oil and gas extraction in the Petroleum Policy 2012 announced on Monday.

The telecom sector also helped the momentum over International Clearing House (ICH) implementation rumours, according to JS Global Capital Analyst Jawad Khan. The gateway ICH will converge all international calls to a single technical gateway led by Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL) against the current practice of being handled by 14 long distance international operators. PTCL rose to its daily upper circuit limit and was the highest traded share for the second consecutive day.

PTCL was the volume leader with 23.1 million shares gaining Re1 to finish at Rs17.3. It was followed by Telecard Limited with 22.9 million shares gaining 0.43 to close at Rs 2.67 and Fauji Cement with 19.7 million shares losing Rs0.17 to close at Rs6.9.

“Investor interest was also witnessed in oil and banking sectors on strong earnings outlook amid hopes for signing of Bilateral Investment Treaty with the US,” said Arif Habib Corporation analyst Ahsan Mehanti. Trade volumes jumped to 304.5 million shares compared with Monday’s tally of 260 million shares.

Foreign institutional investors were buyers of Rs258.9 million and sellers of Rs467.6 million worth of shares, according to data maintained by the National Clearing Company of Pakistan Limited.

Shares of 325 companies were traded on Tuesday. At the end of the day 165 stocks closed higher, 136 declined while 24 remained unchanged. The value of shares traded during the day was Rs 7.2 billion.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 29^th, 2012.