Despite all odds facing the economy such as the severe power crisis, deteriorating law and order and fresh investments witnessing historic lows alongside a political transition, the country’s equities are on the rise amidst undeterred corporate earnings growth of the listed sector. “We have taken our coverage sample of the KSE-100 companies that represents over 70% of the benchmark that recorded a massive growth of 31% on a quarter-on-quarter (QoQ) basis (Oct-Dec12 over Jul-Sep012),” said analysts at Arif Habib Research. Major sectors driving this QoQ earnings growth were telecom, fertilizer and cement despite heavyweights like E&P, OMC and banking sector being key drags. However, on a YoY basis, the first half of FY13 as well as full-year CY12 (Banking, Chemical, Fertilizer) profits were marginally up by 1%. Despite better-than-expected earnings growth recorded on a QoQ basis by the corporate sector, we conservatively keep our full-year earnings growth expectation intact, the analysts said.