Market watch: Bourse continues march on to higher levels

Benchmark KSE-100 index gains 77 points.

KARACHI: Building on momentum, the Karachi bourse continued its rally towards a greater historic high, as investors wait with bated breath for a cut in the central bank’s benchmark policy rate. Investors swarmed towards leveraged companies and dividend-yielding stocks, hoping to gain a foothold ahead of expected speculative money flow from interest-earning bank deposits to the stock market.

“Stocks closed bullish, led by stocks in leveraged sectors, amid hopes for a significant cut in the policy rate after Treasury-bill yields were slashed by 50 basis points ahead of the State Bank policy rate announcement due on Oct 5,” said Ahsan Mehanti, from Arif Habib Corp.

The Karachi Stock Exchange’s (KSE) benchmark 100-share index rose 0.49% or 76.75 points to end at the 15,788.96 points level.

“Renewed foreign interest and a strong earnings outlook for the quarter played a catalyst role in bullish sentiments at the KSE, despite concerns for the outcomes of talks between the International Monetary Fund and Pakistan on the macroeconomic situation,” added Mehanti.

Trade volumes improved to 138 million shares compared with Wednesday’s tally of 108 million shares. The value of shares traded during the day was Rs4.89 billion.

Shares of 391 companies were traded on Thursday. At the end of the day 208 stocks closed higher, 124 declined while 59 remained unchanged.

“Major activity was seen in the textile sector, as a better-than-expected result from Nishat Chunian Limited kept the scrip on the upper limit. Nishat Mills also managed to close the day higher by 2.8% on expectations of better-than-expected earnings tomorrow, and increasing margins going forward,” reported JS Global analyst Shakir Padela.

Lotte Pakistan was the volume leader with 13.13 million shares gaining Rs0.28 to finish at Rs7.40. It was followed by Nishat Mills with 9.49 million shares gaining Rs1.67 to close at Rs60.52 and Golden Arrow with 8.42 million shares gaining Rs0.01 to close at Rs4.99.

Foreign institutional investors were net buyers of Rs620.56 million, or nearly $6.53 million, according to data maintained by the National Clearing Company of Pakistan Limited.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 5^th, 2012.