Market watch: Engro spoils the mood across the board

Volatile benchmark KSE-100 index falls 26 points.

KARACHI: The Karachi bourse opened the week with a volatile session, where the index made an intraday low of 18,526 points. Engro Corporation ruined the mood over its persistent gas supply problems for its fertiliser plants; however Pakistan State Oil managed to break the fall after investors saw opportunity to buy the stock at a discount.

The Karachi Stock Exchange’s (KSE) benchmark 100-share index shed 0.14% or 25.66 points to end at the 18,605.55 point level. Trade volumes shrunk to 134 million shares compared with Friday’s tally of 159 million shares.

“Engro did early damage to investors’ mood, creating panic across the board, with the stock hitting its lower lock in the morning trade on rumours that gas supply from its fertiliser plant may be diverted to the power sector,” reported Jawwad Aboobkar, analyst at Elixir Securities.

While the broader market spent most of the day in the negative territory, the index climbed steadily as the oil marketing giant Pakistan State Oil appeared among hot favourites as traders took a recent decline as a good opportunity to buy.

Shares of 363 companies were traded on Monday. At the end of the day 141 stocks closed higher, 158 declined while 64 remained unchanged. The value of shares traded during the day was Rs5.82 billion.

The cement sector also saw some profit-taking where DG Khan Cement and Lucky Cement closed down 1.9% and 0.6% respectively. However, small cement player, Cherat Cement announced earnings that beat street estimates with the stock closing at its upper limit, and caused rallies among most small and mid tier cement stocks, said Fahad Ali, analyst at JS Global Capital.

TRG Pakistan was the volume leader with 24 million shares gaining Rs0.58 to finish at Rs8.64. It was followed by Engro Corporation with 12.53 million shares falling Rs6.87 to close at Rs130.58 and Wateen Telecom with 11.12 million shares climbing Rs0.07 to close at Rs4.33.

Foreign institutional investors were buyers of Rs282.28 million and sellers of Rs240.52 million, according to data maintained by the National Clearing Company of Pakistan.

Analysts expect the market to stay volatile in the short run, where investors will keep trading positions while following a “buy on dips” strategy.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 23^rd, 2013.

Like Business on Facebook to stay informed and join in the conversation.