Market Watch: Stocks dullish as investors await monetary policy

Second tier stocks help market gain 33 points.


Our Correspondent November 26, 2012

KARACHI: The stock market closed slightly up for the first day of trading for the week, led higher by second tier stocks in the cement, textile and banking sectors. The index spiked after opening, but later corrected to close with modest gains.

“Equities traded lacklustre in the absence of any major triggers,” commented Haris Ahmed Batla, analyst at Elixir Securities.

The Karachi Stock Exchange’s (KSE) benchmark 100-share index gained 0.20% or 32.89 points to end at the 16,270.48 points level. Trade volumes improved to 260 million shares compared with Friday’s tally of 252 million shares. The value of shares traded during the day was Rs3.69 billion.

“Activity remained mostly flows driven, as Maple Lead Cement topped the retail window, while the two other volume leaders – Fauji Cement and DG Khan Cement – closed nearly flat,” reported Batla. “Financials witnessed a slowdown in turnover, as the monetary policy [announcement] gets close and players remain unclear about the interest rate cut. Automobile manufactures, namely Honda Car (down 6.01%) and Pak Suzuki Motors (down 1.26%) witnessed correction after performing for two past sessions.”

Shares of 401 companies were traded on Monday. At the end of the day 248 stocks closed higher, 123 declined while 30 remained unchanged.

Summit Bank was the volume leader with 29.37 million shares gaining Rs0.02 to finish at Rs3.02. It was followed by Fauji Cement with 17.25 million shares gaining Rs0.06 to close at Rs7.03 and Maple Leaf Cement with 17.18 million shares gaining Rs0.97 to close at Rs16.44.

“Engro Foods, after consolidating for the past few sessions, ended the day up by 1.4% on interest from a Middle Eastern dairy company,” reported Shakir Padela, analyst at JS Global. “The textile sector once again remained in the limelight, with Nishat (Chunian) gaining 3.8%. The oil and gas sector was fairly dull throughout the day with no major volumes,” he added. Foreign institutional investors were net buyers of Rs91.41 million, according to data maintained by the National Clearing Company of Pakistan Limited.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 27th, 2012.

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