Market watch: OGDC leads rally as KSE recovers lost ground

Benchmark KSE-100 index gains 175 points.

KARACHI: The Karachi bourse extended the bullish momentum in an attempt to test recent highs as the market mover Oil and Gas Development Company continued dominance with support from Pakistan Petroleum on healthier earnings expectations. IMF’s approval of a $6.6 billion programme also kept positive sentiments alive towards the country’s largest stock market.

The Karachi Stock Exchange’s (KSE) added 0.75% or 175.21 points to its benchmark 100-share index to end at the 23,613.2-point level. Trade volumes climbed to 299 million shares compared with Monday’s tally of 250 million shares.

“The market continued to tread in positive territory with the Oil and Gas Development Company and MCB Bank leading the rally,” reported Ovais Ahsan, analyst at JS Global Capital.



Sentiments remained positive on the back of IMF finally approving $6.6 billion programme for Pakistan and expectations of strong corporate results, Ahsan added.

Despite rumours of a gas price hike for the fertiliser sector, reported foreign buying on account of improving feed stock gas supply for the sector pushed Engro Corporation near its upper limit also translating interest in its holding company Dawood Hercules.

Moreover, fears of an interest rate hike in the upcoming monetary policy subsided as participants bet on expectations of analyst that the central bank will keep them unchanged.

Bank of Punjab led volumes as speculation over the bank making a large debt recovery continued said JS Global’s Ahsan.

The cement sector which remained in the limelight in the last session, saw some pruning on fears that a hike in rates could hurt earnings of the highly-leveraged sector.

Shares of 377 companies were traded on Tuesday. At the end of the day 208 stocks closed higher, 134 declined while 35 remained unchanged. The value of shares traded during the day was Rs11.3 billion.

Bank of Punjab was the volume leader with 31.5 million shares losing Rs0.13 to finish at Rs14.49. It was followed by Fauji Cement with 19.4 million shares shedding Rs0.21 to close at Rs15.74 and Jahangir Siddiqui and Company with 16.2 million shares gaining Rs0.6 to close at Rs12.89.

Foreign institutional investors were net buyers of Rs449 million, according to data maintained by the National Clearing Company of Pakistan.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 14^th, 2013.

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