KARACHI – The Karachi Stock Exchange (KSE), on Friday, exhibited bullish activity on investors’ positive expectations from the leverage product, Margin Trading System (MTS), to be made operational by the federal finance minister today. The KSE-100 index accumulated 238.03 points or 2.02 percent and closed at 12,000.03 points against 11,762.00 points a day earlier. “Bullish activity witnessed in scrips across the board ahead of launch of MTS on Saturday by the Finance Minister,” said Ahsan Mehanti of Arif Habib Investments. On last trading day of the week, the analyst said, investors remained bullish throughout the trading session as political uncertainty had waned out after rationalisation of petroleum prices by the government. “Rise in global commodity prices, Brent crude oil above $115 and renewed foreign interest in blue chip scrips played a catalysts role in positive activity at KSE,” Mehnati said.
With KSE-100 benchmark hitting the 12,082.52 points and 11,744.99 points intraday high and low, total turnover at the ready-counter was recorded at 187.492 million shares, compared to 162.438 million on Thursday. Market capitalisation also remained on the higher side and closed at Rs 3.233 trillion against the previous Rs 3.174 trillion. Lotte Pakistan PTA was the volume leader, registering over 27.335 million of its shares traded on the day. Despite leading share trading, the firm could not avoid a loss of 0.03 paisa per share that closed at Rs 15.98.
The future market exhibited robust growth of 2.86 million shares and closed at 8.619 million compared to 5.756 million on Thursday. “Despite sell-off through off-shore channels, the local equity bourse saw bold bullish session, since various main board stocks carry the likelihood of trading improved multiple, post availability of ready board leverage,” viewed Hasnain Asghar Ali of Aziz Fidahusein and Company. The analyst said that local holding firms and resident participants, both from retail and corporate circuits, well targeted the main board stocks along with various dividend yielding and mid tire stocks.
“Thus allowing the benchmark to test 12000, backed by quality turnover, although strength in various high priced stocks did witness off-loading, healthy sentiments and placements of proceeds in other stocks and sectors disallowed any resistance to the bulls,” he added. He said indeed the run-up, which was thoroughly backed by quality turnover, was not without rumour regarding changes in taxation mechanism. “The rumour that echoed the arena was replacement of CGT with previously charged CVT, the rumour although failed to find official backing supported the momentum, materialisation will certainly allow the local bourse to re-emerge on the international radar, having high volumes and high discounts as the tempting features, for the international participants”, he maintained.
