The bullish run continued at the KSE on the back of hope that strained Pak-US ties are on the mend after a visit by the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s visit to Pakistan. On the last trading day of the week, the benchmark KSE 100-share index closed some 27.40 points higher at 12,225.52 against 12,198.12 of the previous day.
“The bullish trend continued on strong valuations. Positive expectations for Pak-US relations after US Secretary of State’s visit to Pakistan,” said Ahsan Mehanti, Director Arif Habib Investments. The analyst insisted investors’ hopes for the possible EU duty relief for Pakistan’s textile exports also affected the market sentiments positively. The index hit the intraday high and a low of 12,241.42 and 12,175.08 points, respectively. Trading saw 130 scrips gaining, 122 losing value while 91 remained unchanged.
Mehnti stressed that the higher estimated outlay for PSDP in the federal budget was taken positive for the cement sector. Besides, he said, higher refinery margins and recovery in international oil prices also invited the investors’ interest in commodity scrips. This was despite heightened security concerns in the country after terrorist strike in Kohat. While market capitalisation remained in the green zone to close at Rs3.241 trillion against Rs3.234 trillion the previous day with turnover at the ready-counter thin at 79.641 million shares against 101.515 million of the day earlier.
Nishat Mills Limited appeared as a volume leader of the day with 6.525 million of its shares traded at the share rate opening of Rs60.06 while it closed at Rs61.56. The futures market, also tumbled at 9.266 million shares against Thursday’s 10.82 million. Hasnain Asghar Ali of Aziz Fidahusein and Company said a high powered meeting between the US and Pakistani authorities and the last day of the roll-over week led to cautious trading. “However, snap rallies mainly of speculative nature did provide various short term trading opportunities to the market men, low turnover and volatility did restrict the trading band.”
It was also noted that day end squaring exerted pressure on the benchmark, dips, however, invited renewed buying interest mainly in the frontline volume leaders thus allowing the index to stage a decent comeback, supported by reasonable volumes. “The reservations expressed by various market participants, on the decision likely to get official support only upon announcement of federal budget, regarding status of CGT, did keep nervousness evident, thereby restricting trades to the dividend yielding stocks,” he added.
