KSE breathes a sigh of relief

KARACHI – Following a contraction by 484 points or four percent in the previous two trading sessions, a recovery provided some breathing space to local investors. Market closed up 113 points today after losing almost 500 points in the last two sessions due to let-up in selling from foreign funds, and Moody’s maintaining its B3 credit rating for Pakistan along with a stable outlook. The KSE-100 index closed at 11,488.06 levels with the gain of 112.92 points while total volume stood at 52,282,226 along with the total value of 3,080,069,851. KSE 30 index closed at 11178.34 levels with the gain of 92.82 points, and All Share index gained 76.30 points after closing at 8,055.89 levels.
A total of 179 scrips advanced 99 declined and 75 remain unchanged out of total of 353 scrips traded. Introduction of leverage products has failed to ignite investor participation as merely 63 million shares were traded, whilst blue chip stocks landed amongst the top volume leaders including FFBL, Engro, NBP and POL. Political uncertainty has further dampened local sentiments already fearing supply pressure from foreign investors as geopolitical situation in the middle east unravels gradually. Monetary policy expected over the weekend has also kept the investors ashore. Investors should remain selective, as further retraction is plausible before recovery.
NBP hit its upper circuit breaker as the stock traded ex-dividend and issued bonus, while shares of the exploration and production giant, OGDC, was up 1.6 percent over reports that the Privatisation Commission has invited expression of interest from financial advisory consortiums for issuance of its exchangeable bonds. Volumes were higher at 63 million shares with LOTPTA leading the charge in term of volume. The top gainers of the market were Bestway Cement, Bank Al-Falah Limited, National Bank of Pakistan, Javedan Cement., Askari Bank, Pakistan Tobacco Company and Faysal Bank Limited. While the top losers include Adamjee Insurance, Rafhan Maize Products, Packages Limited, Colgate Palmolive, EFU General Insurance, Unilever Pakistan and Bata Pakistan.
KSE Market Capitalisation stood at Rs 3,064.19 billion, that is $35.86 billion, and KSE Future Volume stood at 2.39 million shares. KSE Future Value was Rs 354.44 million, and the KSE future spread was 9.63 percent.