Market watch: Market continues upward hike

KSE-100 gains 314 points to end at 23,415 points.

KARACHI: The market continued its bullish hike on Friday driven by cement and banking, managing to stay above 23,000 points for the second day to end at 23,415 points.

The Karachi Stock Exchange’s (KSE) benchmark 100-share index rose 1.34% or 313.96 points to end at 23,415 points.

Engro Corp (ENGRO PA +5%) and Engro Foods (EFOODS PA +2.4%) managed to rebound on the news of the restoration of the zero-rating facility for dairy products.



The banking sector also continued to make gains. “Despite no confirmation, rumours of minimum savings rate cut are constantly pushing banking stocks to test new highs with United Bank (UBL PA +3.1%) and Habib Bank (HBL PA +5%),” said Faisal Bilwani of Elixir Securities.

The cement sector continued its upward trend on the back of rumours of an expected rise in retail prices and earnings.

“We believe that market will remain volatile in the coming session,” said Wasi Khan of JSGlobal.

Trade volumes rose to a level of 238 million shares compared with Thursday’s tally of 183 million shares.

Shares of 355 companies were traded on Thursday. At the end of the day 229 stocks closed higher, 93 declined while 33 remained unchanged. The value of shares traded during the day was Rs10.8 billion.



Bank of Punjab was the volume leader with 31 million shares gaining Rs0.95 to finish at Rs15.07. It was followed by Fauji Cement with 16 million shares gaining Rs0.24 to close at Rs14.38 and Maple Leaf Cement with 15.5 million shares gaining Rs1.36 to close at Rs28.57.

Foreign institutional investors were net buyers of Rs330 million, according to data maintained by the National Clearing Company of Pakistan Limited.

In the incoming weeks
investors also expect an increase in the margins for DAP based fertilizer, which will boost an already high performing fertilizer sector. This could be coupled with progress on the $7.3 billion IMF loan, which the government has now officially expressed desire for.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 20^th, 2013.

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