Market watch: Foreign inflows buoy KSE as earnings disappoint

Benchmark KSE-100 index climbs 75 points.

KARACHI:

The stock market managed to close in the black after a volatile session due to foreign inflows near the close of the trading session. Earnings announcement spurred mixed sentiments and investors remained cautious, but the news of possible International Monetary Fund negotiations over 100 basis points increase in interest rates kept the banking sector in the limelight.

The Karachi Stock Exchange’s (KSE) benchmark 100-share index rose 0.32% or 74.69 points to end at the 23,687.89-point level. Trade volumes fell to 181 million shares, compared with Tuesday’s tally of 299 million shares. The market was closed on Wednesday because of August 14.

The market opened with the result announcements of the Attock Group, which missed street estimates, reported Mujtaba Barakzai of JS Global Capital. Among the Group’s companies, Attock Refinery closed on its lower limit mainly due to the lower than expected payout.



“Led by index heavyweight Oil and Gas Development Company and MCB Bank, the benchmark index closed in the positive territory,” said Samar Iqbal, assistant vice president of equity sales at Topline Securities. Lower than estimated earnings and payouts resulted in profit-taking in most of the other active stocks, Iqbal added.

A higher international oil price, due to the Egypt crisis, is likely to have a positive impact on OGDC, thus the yesterday’s buying of the stock.

The news of possible interest rate hike led the banking sector to the list of investor favourites, while the highly-leveraged cement sector took a beating in Thursday’s session.

SOURCE: KSE

The value of shares traded during the day was Rs9.23 billion.

Bank of Punjab was the volume leader with 18.23 million shares losing Rs0.49 to finish at Rs14. It was followed by Fauji Cement with 11.25 million shares falling Rs0.37 to close at Rs15.37 and National Bank of Pakistan with 9.12 million shares gaining Rs0.7 to close at Rs57.49.

Foreign institutional investors were net buyers of Rs817 million, according to data maintained by the National Clearing Company of Pakistan.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 16^th, 2013.

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