Market watch: Oil, gas sector propels bourse to 52-week high

Benchmark KSE-100 index surges 102 points.


Our Correspondent August 30, 2012

KARACHI: Index heavyweight – oil and gas sector – drives the stock market to a 52-week high on Thursday ahead of expected healthy payouts in upcoming corporate results.

The Karachi Stock Exchange’s (KSE) benchmark 100-share index surged 0.68% or 102.4 points to end at 15,253.71point level.

“Index heavyweight – the oil and gas sector – witnessed bullish sentiments from investors on the expectation of healthy payout and increasing refining margins of Pakistan Oilfields (POL) and National Refinery Limited (NRL),” said Topline Securities Equity Dealer Samar Iqbal.

NRL closed the day on its upper limit of 5% while Attock Refinery gained 4.2%. POL also gained 2.2% as traders expect cash and hefty bonus dividend with the upcoming full year result.  “Prominent amongst the volume leaders were large cap banking stocks showing improvement in corporate profitability along with telecom stocks, probably on 3G licence sensation,” said Escorts Capital Chief Operating Officer Hasnain Asghar Ali.

The telecom sector once again was the highest traded industry on hopes of international clearing house (ICH) development despite Competition Commission of Pakistan calling the plan anti-competitive.

Since August 10, PTCL’s share has gained 21% following reports of a proposed ICH gateway that will converge all international calls to a single technical gateway led by PTCL against the current practice of being handled by 14 long distance international operators.

Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL) led the volumes chart with 23.9 million shares gaining Rs0.66 to finish at Rs17.04.

It was followed by Telecard Limited with 18.9 million shares gaining Rs0.31 to close at Rs2.75 and Jahangir Siddiqui and Company with 16.6 million shares losing Rs0.85 to close at Rs14.75.

Foreign institutional investors were net buyers of Rs357.9 million – a significant increase from Rs118.7 million yesterday, according to data maintained by the National Clearing Company of Pakistan Limited.

Shares of 366 companies were traded on Thursday. The value of shares traded during the day was Rs6.9 billion. Trade volumes jumped to 220 million shares compared with Wednesday’s tally of 197.7 million shares.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 31st, 2012.

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