Market watch: Bourse climbs on back of index heavyweights

Benchmark KSE-100 index rises 26 points.

KARACHI: Investor interest in cements, telecom and energy stocks played the role of catalyst in bullish sentiments at the local bourse despite security concerns in the city.

The Karachi Stock Exchange’s (KSE) benchmark 100-share index climbed 0.17% or 25.96 points to end at 15,399.42 point level.

Speculation of early settlement of the National Reconciliation Ordinance case after the Supreme Court granted October 5, 2012 as the deadline for correction of the letter to the Swiss government supported the climb, said Arif Habib Corporation analyst Ahsan Mehanti Trade volumes fell to a paltry level of 83 million shares compared with Tuesday’s tally of 105 million shares.

Shares of 367 companies were traded on Wednesday.The value of shares traded during the day was Rs2.3 billion.

Pakistan Telecommunication Company (PTCL) was the volume leader with 9.4 million shares, gaining Rs0.31 to finish at Rs19.67, attracting buying on the news of the international clearing house (ICH) approval earlier. The proposed ICH gateway 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.

It was followed by Maple Leaf Cement with 5.5 million shares gaining Rs0.24 to close at Rs9.02 and DG Khan Cement with 4.3 million shares climbing Rs0.52 to close at Rs48.38.

The cement sector dominated the gains again as four of the top five volume leaders were cement producers over the news, earlier, that cement exports surged by 20.38% to 1.2 million tons worth $91.4 million in the first two months of the fiscal year 2012-13, according to the data released by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics.

Healthy full year earnings announcements by Maple Leaf Cement kept the script in demand. The company converted losses of Rs1.8 billion last year to a profit of Rs496 million for the fiscal year 2011-12, according to a notice sent to the KSE on Tuesday.

Engro Corporation remained a favourite on the news of allocation of gas fields to fertiliser plants on the Sui Northern Gas Pipelines network before December 2012, according to Mujtaba Barakzai, analyst at JS Global Capital.

Foreign institutional investors were net buyers of Rs388 million showing renewed interest in the market, according to data maintained by the National Clearing Company of Pakistan Limited.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 27^th, 2012.