KARACHI – After an initial set back, the local equity market exhibited renewed consolidation in initial hours; however it failed to set a direction. Cautious accumulation, however, turned into a bold bullish spell wherein oil and gas exploration stocks led the show duly followed by various stocks from the main board having speculative tendency – thus allowing the benchmark yet another triple digit gain. The KSE-100 index closed at 11699.16 levels following a gain of 90.73 points, while total volume and total value stood at 107,404,374 and 5,122,888,242 respectively.
The KSE-30 index gained 76.75 points to close at 11387.43 levels, while the all Share index accumulated 58.40 points to close at 8139.71 levels. Off-loading through off-shore channel in previous session did keep the high priced stocks under pressure, while renewed selling in high priced stocks thoroughly checked the positive numbers during early trades. Since the bulls were in for a breather after gaining more then 500 points in back to back sessions, the benchmark made a short visit to the red zone, however the stocks offering decent dividend yields and having low impact cost did invite renewed buying from local circuits. Low volume price erosion in high priced stocks, however, kept the accumulators on the back-foot, while day-end spike in speculative stocks allowed various participants to improve buying limits.
While volume was mainly contributed by low priced stocks, snap rally in POL carrying speculative vibes kept the punters from corporate and retail sector active in the latter half of the session. Expectations regarding rollback of the recent hike in petroleum prices and launching of MTS is likely to provide trigger to the ailing bourse, which is found failing to invite potential turnover and struggling to sustain the attained levels, said Hasnain Asghar Ali at Aziz Fidahusein.
Launch of proposed products including MTS and SLB will indeed provide substantial depth to the local bourse, thus allowing the local equity market to re-emerge on international radar besides allowing privatisation program to attain desired results, i.e. generating healthy proceeds by further listing of government holdings in local bourse through sale of shares and in international equity markets through GDR offerings.
Although initial response to leverage product is unlikely to reflect excitement due to stringent procedural regulations and gloomy horizon on economic, financial and diplomatic fronts, healthy participation by the financiers from government and private treasuries is likely to re-invite leverage players to trade at their maximum capacity, he added.
KSE sustains momentum, adds 90.73 pts
