Market watch: Day dominated by bulls led by banking sector

Benchmark KSE-100 index leaps 149 points.

KARACHI: The market continues its bullish momentum, leaping to yet another record high as stock prices surged coupled with healthy volumes. Banking sector in particular and positive sector-specific news boosted confidence in the market.

The Karachi Stock Exchange’s (KSE) benchmark 100-share index leaped 0.89% or 148.85 points to end at 16,824.55 point level.

“An all time high as index closed at 16,800 levels, thanks to banking giant MCB Bank that managed to close at two years high brushing aside any negativity in earnings due to declining interest rates,” said Sibtain Mustafa, analyst at Elixir Securities.

“Market hype about large foreign participation, a positive surprise in urea off-take numbers and decent growth in cement dispatches also helped the climb,” said Khalil Usmani, analyst at JS Global Capital.

Apart from that, expectation of a possible interest rate cut, expected to be the last cut in the foreseeable future also kept investors in a bullish mood.

Trade volumes remained healthy and rose to 258 million shares compared with Wednesday’s tally of 234 million shares.

The crisis –hit national carrier Pakistan International Airlines attracted buying as traders expect government to pump in more money to keep the airline operational, said Samar Iqbal, equity dealer at Topline Securities.

Cement sector also witnessed fresh buying after cement dispatches for November witnessed an increase of 17.6% to 2.65 million tons over the year, data from All Pakistan Cement Manufacturers Association shows.

Telecom giant Pakistan Telecommunication Company managed to hold previous lows as investors continue to bet a softer stance by the court post international clearing house withdrawal by the Pakistan Telecom Authority.

Shares of 402 companies were traded on Thursday. At the end of the day 256 stocks closed higher, 115 declined while 31 remained unchanged. The value of shares traded during the day was Rs6.87 billion.

Byco Petroleum was the volume leader with 23.78 million shares gaining Rs0.99 to finish at Rs11.66. It was followed by Fauji Cement with 16.21 million shares shedding Rs0.02 to close at Rs6.80 and Pakistan International Airlines with 14.42 million shares gaining Re1 (upper limit) to close at Rs3.58.

Foreign institutional investors were net sellers of Rs97.59 million, according to data maintained by the National Clearing Company of Pakistan Limited.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 7^th, 2012.