Market watch: Investors await trigger, stay on sidelines

Benchmark KSE-100 index gains 49.63 points

KARACHI: The index got a push in the black at the start of the day and sustained its positive ride to end marginally north. However, low volume and value of shares traded meant trading still remained lacklustre as investors kept awaiting a trigger.

Despite gains in the region, the market failed to mirror the performance primarily on anxiety over foreign selling in index names with major investors preferring to stay on the sideline.

At close on Tuesday, the Karachi Stock Exchange’s (KSE) benchmark 100-share index gained 0.15% or 49.63 points to end at 34,275.75.



Elixir Securities, in its report, said most participation was seen in small and mid-caps that led volumes, while oil marketing play by Pakistan State Oil (PSO PA 1.52%) continued its upward rally against the expectation of profit-booking on quarterly volumetric growth numbers released on Tuesday.

“We expect market to hover and consolidate above 34,000 levels with news flow from IMF review guiding market direction for the remainder of the week,” the report added.

Meanwhile, JS Global analyst Ovais Ahsan was of the view that with the result season mostly out of the way, investors chose to sit on the sidelines and consolidated positions as now the focus would shift to the upcoming monetary policy which will be announced in the latter half of the month.



“TRG (+0.27%) and K-Electric (+0.39%) were volume leaders with the latter continuing to rally on the back of strong earnings for Q1.

“Nishat Mills (+0.2%) saw some interest as the export-oriented sector gained on the back of a depreciating Pak rupee,” he said.

Trade volumes rose to 123 million shares compared with Monday’s tally of 122 million shares.

Shares of 359 companies were traded on Tuesday. At the end of the day, 164 stocks closed higher, 174 declined while 21 remained unchanged. The value of shares traded during the day was Rs5.8 billion.

TRG Pakistan Limited was the volume leader with 13.7 million shares, gaining Rs0.10 to finish at Rs37.75. It was followed by K-Electric Limited with 12.2 million shares, gaining Rs0.03 to close at Rs7.69 and Jahangir Siddiqui and Company with 11.2 million shares, gaining Rs0.37 to close at Rs21.71.

Foreign institutional investors were net sellers of Rs27 million during the trade session, according to data maintained by the National Clearing Company of Pakistan Limited.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 4^th, 2015.

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