Market watch: Profit banking ahead of weekend drags market down

Benchmark KSE-100 index falls 43 points.

KARACHI: The local bourse closed in red after investors preferred to bank profits near all-time high wiping early gains as selling in blue-chips pulled the index down. Activity remained confined in small- and mid-tier stocks as investors stayed active on speculative plays.

The Karachi Stock Exchange’s (KSE) benchmark 100-share index shed 0.25% or 42.68 points to end at 16,865.34 point level. Trade volumes fell nominally to 182 million shares compared with Thursday’s tally of 185 million shares.

“Activity however remained confined towards mid cap stocks as 36% of total volume was witnessed only in TRG Pakistan, Dewan Cement and Byco Petroleum,” said Samar Iqbal, equity dealer at Topline Securities.

“IT firm TRG Pakistan led the volume chart for the second successive day on reported retail and prop book activity. Stock has gained over 43% in the last two days and day traders are having a field day in this penny name,” reported Faisal Bilwani, analyst at Elixir Securities.

TRG Pakistan announced earlier that its board had approved evaluation on admission to the Alternative Investment Market – a sub-market of the London Stock Exchange – via its subsidiary DG Services.

MCB Bank that weathered selling in last few sessions and dared to trade against market direction finally gave way, closing red on thin volumes.

Byco Petroleum had announced earlier completion of its oil refinery in Lasbela district which will have the capacity to refine 120,000 barrels of oil per day, deemed to be country’s largest oil refinery.

Shares of 369 companies were traded on final trading session of the week. At the end of the day 172 stocks closed higher, 152 declined while 45 remained unchanged. The value of shares traded during the day was Rs3.26 billion.

TRG Pakistan was the volume leader with 36.14 million shares gaining Rs0.74 to finish at Rs5.77. It was followed by Dewan Cement with 17.37 million shares gaining Rs0.28 to close at Rs5.20 and Byco Petroleum with 12.9 million shares losing Rs0.25 to close at Rs12.09.

Foreign institutional investors were net sellers of Rs145.29 million, according to data maintained by the National Clearing Company of Pakistan Limited.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 22^nd, 2012.