Market watch: Index continues upward amid interest in oil and gas sector

Benchmark KSE-100 index gains 312.61 points.

KARACHI: Amid an upbeat broader market sentiment, the bourse continued the upward trend, with the index flirting with new highs above the 26,500 levels mainly helped by gains in oil names.

The Karachi Stock Exchange’s (KSE) benchmark 100-share index rose 1.19% or 312.61 points to end at 26,521.99.

“Select energy names seemed to regain lost glory, gaining strength and testing new highs over heightened foreign and local interest in Pakistan Oil Fields (POL PA +1.8%), along with Pakistan State Oil (PSO PA +4.1%) and Pakistan Petroleum Limited (PPL PA +4.1%) that hit its upper price circuit mid-day,” said Jawwad Aboobakar from Elixir Securities.



“Retail plays continued to churn high volumes with investor interest active in stocks to the likes of Deewan Cement (PA -2.9%), Lafarge Cement (LPCL PA +2.1%) and Bank of Punjab (BOP PA +4.5%).

“We expect the market to continue with the momentum, with hopes of improvement in macros with respect to inflation and forex reserves, and advise investors to stay long in financials (HBL, BAFL, FABL) along with energy names to the likes of POL and OGDC,” Aboobakar concluded.

Fahad M Ali of JS Global said that the oil and gas sector was the major market mover as interest in PPL, PSO, OGDC and POL was seen.

“National Bank of Pakistan still remained depressed after disappointing result announcement. Cement sector also corrected after rallying for a couple of days where profit taking was witnessed in stocks like MLCF and DGKC.

“We expect the market to remain bullish in the next few sessions where banking and fertiliser sector will be star performers,” said Ali.



Trade volumes fell to 263 million shares compared with Tuesday’s tally of 287 million.

Shares of 385 companies were traded on Wednesday. At the end of the day, 213 stocks closed higher, 148 declined while 24 remained unchanged. The value of shares traded during the day was Rs12.4 billion.

Maple Leaf Cement was the volume leader with 34.2 million shares, losing 1.38 to finish at Rs30.24. It was followed by Lafarge Pakistan with 22.9 million shares, gaining Rs0.24 to close at Rs11.62 and Bank Alfalah with 16.6 shares, gaining Rs0.08 to close at Rs27.87.

Foreign institutional investors were net buyers of Rs447 million, according to data maintained by the National Clearing Company of Pakistan Limited.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 6^th, 2014.

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