Market watch: Despite profit-taking, index closes above 18,000

Benchmark KSE-100 index falls 54 points.

KARACHI: Investors opted to bank profits from selected counters above the key 18,000-point level. Small and mid cap stocks saw profit taking, however, positive developments for fertiliser producers and earnings announcement of the banking sector attracted buying breaking the fall, which touched an intraday low of 17,964 points.

The Karachi Stock Exchange’s (KSE) benchmark 100-share index fell 0.3% or 53.77 points to end at the 18,020.5 point level. Trade volumes fell to 322 million shares compared with Friday’s tally of 369 million shares.

“The Karachi bourse opened positive but lost earlier gains on profit taking over 18,000 levels,” reported Harris Batla, analyst at Elixir Securities.

Shares of 394 companies were traded on Monday. At the end of the day 161 stocks closed higher, 182 declined while 51 remained unchanged. The value of shares traded during the day was Rs9.12 million.

Engro Corporation remained on investors’ radar, hitting its upper limit earlier in day pulling its parent Dawood Group also into the limelight on the back of government’s continuous commitment to resolve the gas supply issue for the industry.

Earlier, the Oil and Gas Development Company struck a deal with the fertiliser producers on the Sui-network to provide interrupted supply of 130 million cubic feet (mmcf) of gas per day from the Kunar Pasakhi Deep gas field. The Sui Northern Gas Pipelines (SNGPL) network includes Pakarab Fertilizer, Engro Enven, Agritech Limited and Dawood Hercules fertiliser plants.

No surprise in earnings took away the excitement in United Bank as its results were lower than market consensus, while National Bank of Pakistan witnessed buying over a healthy cash and stock dividend, driving the stock to its peak in over two years.

Telecard was the volume leader with 35.1 million shares gaining Rs0.86 to finish at Rs7.96. It was followed by National Bank of Pakistan with 31.38 million shares gaining Rs1.35 to close at Rs54.74 and Pakistan Telecommunication Company with 27.84 million shares losing Rs0.33 to close at Rs23.64.

Foreign institutional investors were net sellers of Rs112.47 million, according to data maintained by the National Clearing Company of Pakistan Limited.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 26^th, 2013.

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