KARACHI – The KSE-100 index posted a decent volume of 168 million shares following the assassination of Punjab Governor Salmaan Tasser. Yesterday’s breakout however, made the market operate in the green zone, going as much as 100 points plus from yesterday’s closing because of the hike in petroleum prices, which improved levels for the oil sector in the first session, and in cotton prices which caused the textile scrips to perform as well.
From the onset of trading, the index shrugged off the killing but profit booking took the shine of the rally.
The index moved within the band of 187 points, making a high of 12,213 and low of 12,026 points. Over the last couple of days the market sustained the 12,000 level and it seems for the time it seems to have stabilised around the region. Today’s market performance is largely backed by index heavy OGDC with a gain of Rs 1.53 per share.
The KSE 100 index closed at 12140.84 with the gain of 30.58 points while total volume stood at 132,665,044 along with the total value of 7,492,149,997. LOTPTA also picked up pace, hitting a high of Rs14.83 due to the rise in PTA international prices, improved margins and news of an expected decrease in freight cost. The top three volume leaders today were LOTPTA, AHCL and FFBL with volumes of 23 million, 15 million and 11 million shares, respectively.
ABL and HBL posted better returns with NML also performed strongly. Initial negativity was furthered by corporate participants in main board stocks and allowed the index to reemerge in the green zone and move on to search for new highs in the near future. However, profit taking, stock, and sector swapping by local participants did offer resistance to the benchmark, which stood with triple digit gains, while sell-off in main board stocks did force the index to loose substantially.
Although volumes were squeezed following the assassination in the capital, as volumetric activity in holding companies as well as in various low priced and group specific stocks, besides providing trading opportunities, pushed the overall turnover to attain reasonable levels.
The likelihood of amicable settlement of political disputes did allow sideliners to cautiously purchase stocks still available at discounts, while there remains real potential of providing opportunities of capital gains along with double digit yields, said Hasnain Asghar Ali at Aziz Fidahusein.
