Market watch: Karachi stock market ends week on muted note

Benchmark KSE-100 index falls 54 points.

KARACHI:

Late selling on Friday managed to push a largely indecisive stock market into the red right before closing.

The Karachi Stock Exchange’s (KSE) benchmark 100-share index fell 0.24% or 53.88 points to end at 22,160.85 points.

“KSE-100 had a dull day with low volumes as the last day of the deliverable futures along with recent slide in the market kept retail and institutional activity limited. However, selling in the final half an hour pushed index to hit a low of 21,989 points as MCB (PA -4.3%) ended on its lower lock followed by PSO (PA -3.4%) and PTC (PA - 2.1%),” said Muhammad Sibtain Mustafa of Elixir Securites.

Following the fallout from the fracturing of the cement cartel yesterday, Mustafa said that investors now believe that the sector will stick to its former price agreement.



“Selling pressure in banks and oil stocks forced index to close in negative. However institutional support in OGDC curbed the fall. Cement stocks took a breather after news that the cement cartel remained intact surfaced. Bank of Punjab witnessed major activity and closed 7% up after announcing better than expected June earnings,” said Samar Iqbal of Topline Securities.

Trade volumes rose to 185 million shares compared with Thursday’s tally of 177 million shares.

Shares of 333 companies were traded on Friday. At the end of the day 98 stocks closed higher, 205 declined while 30 remained unchanged. The value of shares traded during the day was Rs6.6 billion.

Bank of Punjab was the volume leader with 38 million shares gaining 0.92 to finish at Rs12.63. It was followed by Jahangir Siddique and Company with 14 million shares gaining Rs0.99 to close at Rs9.24 and Fauji Cement with 13 million shares losing Rs0.18 to close at Rs13.31.



Foreign institutional investors were net buyers of Rs206 million, according to data maintained by the National Clearing Company of Pakistan Limited.

Investors ended the week without the enthusiasm that was witnessed on Monday, as confusion and anticipation forced investors to hold their positions. Any further movement will likely be caused by the new monetary policy when it is announced.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 31^st, 2013.

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