Market Watch: Bourse gains despite lack of triggers

Benchmark KSE-100 index climbs 41 points.

KARACHI:

Investors opted to stay on the sidelines ahead of the monetary policy statement announcement by the State Bank of Pakistan due Friday (today), where most analysts believe the central bank will maintain the status quo  and will not change the current interest rate of 9.5%.

Consequently, participation in trading at the local bourse declined to insignificant levels due to lack of triggers, where small and mid capitalised stocks, particularly cement and telecom sectors on the back of expectations of stellar earnings, remained on investors’ radar.

The Karachi Stock Exchange’s (KSE) benchmark 100-share index climbed 0.22% or 41.2 points to end at the 18,764.55 point level.

“The KSE-100 index is in the need of any news from political or corporate fronts for activity to kick in,” reported Samar Iqbal, head of equity sales at Topline Securities.

“Volumes remain on the lower side as investors took a cautious approach ahead of the monetary policy statement,” said Ovais Ahsan, analyst at JS Global Capital.

Ambiguity surrounding fortunes of incoming call termination rates prevailed ahead of earnings announcement for Pakistan Telecommunication Company, while the banking sector witnessed marginal recovery on recent losses.

With activity not picking up, trade volumes fell to paltry level of 125 million shares compared with Wednesday’s tally of 152 million shares.

Traders accumulated Engro Corporation and its associate companies over rumours of gas supply resumption, which may allow it to operate both fertiliser plants simultaneously.

For the auto sector, positive sales figures for March coupled with declining yen attracted investors to Atlas Honda and Pak Suzuki expecting upswing in quarterly earnings.

Shares of 357 companies were traded on Thursday. At the end of the day 148 stocks closed higher, 154 declined while 55 remained unchanged. The value of shares traded during the day was Rs4.7 billion.

Al-Abbas Cement Industries was the volume leader with 12.79 million shares gaining Rs0.27 to finish at Rs6.3. It was followed by Engro Corporation with 9.08 million shares gaining Rs1.74 to close at Rs142.89 and Engro Polymer with 7.77 million shares climbing Rs0.09 to close at Rs12.26.

Foreign institutional investors were net buyers of Rs346.87 million, according to data maintained by the National Clearing Company of Pakistan Limited.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 12^th, 2013.

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