RECORDER REPORT
KARACHI: Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) on Monday opened on strong positive note and the benchmark KSE-100 index hit 49,441.22 points intra-day high level, however the market came under selling pressure in later hours that pushed the index into negative territory. The index finally closed at 49,039.41 points, up only 1.18 points.
Trading activities further improved as the trading volumes increased to 492.310 million shares as compared to 430.724 million shares traded on previous session. Total market capitalization increased by Rs 8 billion to Rs 9.803 trillion. Out of total 437 active scrips, 263 closed in positive and 162 in negative while the value of 12 stocks remained unchanged.
The foreign investors remained net sellers of shares and withdrew another $6.6 million from Pakistan stock market.
Dost Steels was the volume leader with 33.754 million shares, however, lost Rs 0.11 to close at Rs 14.15 followed by Azgard Nine that gained Rs 0.64 to close at Rs 9.87 with 27.320 million shares. Bank of Punjab increased by Rs 0.24 to close at Rs 18.11 with 22.357 million shares.
Wyeth Pak and Pak Services were the top gainers increasing by Rs 73.40 and Rs 41.96 respectively to close at Rs 5198.00 and Rs 881.29 while Ghandhara Industries and Abbott Lab were the top losers declining by Rs 21.43 and Rs 13.11 respectively to close at Rs 806.08 and Rs 918.20.
Zeeshan Afzal at Insight Securities said that profit booking at all time highs killed the momentum that was led by the textile sector upon sentiments of package to be announced soon. Political uncertainty due to Panama case hearing where opposition submitted evidence against ruling party leaders remained another key factor to book profit. Less triggers across the market allowed investors to diversify the portfolio mainly into textile.
Nabeel Haroon at JS Global Capital said textile sector continued to garner investors’ interest on the back of the news that the Prime Minister may announce Rs 75 billion package for six major export oriented sectors, where textile sector is expected to be the main beneficiary of the export package. Major incentives to textile sector expected are removal of duty on various raw materials and import of industrial machinery, and rebate on various textile segments. The NCL and GATM were the top performers of this sector and increased by 2.22 percent and 2.74 percent respectively. The E&P sector lost value to close in the red zone as crude oil prices failed to sustain above $54/bbl level. This decline was on the increase in US drilling activity that is offsetting the planned output cut by OPEC members.
The OGDC and PPL were the major index movers from this sector and declined by 1.19 percent and 0.67 percent respectively. Top contribution to the index came from the UBL and MCB with respective increase of 0.61 percent and 1.02 percent whereas HBL and LUCK declined by 0.76 percent and 0.54 percent respectively.
