KARACHI: Stocks climbed on Friday extending the earlier day’s gains. The KSE-100 index closed higher by one half of a per cent or 100.41 points at 21,775.39.
The first session saw the market start out on a positive note, surprising many investors who thought that with just one last session of trading after the week-end closure, on Monday, before Eid holidays bulls would remain at bay.
But the index jumped by 270 points to the day’s highest at 21,945 points, before profit taking set in the last half hour of trading, dragging the index down to par nearly half of the gains.
In the absence of short-term catalyst, volumes remained lacklustre at 93 million shares on Friday, slightly lower than 98 million shares traded the earlier day. In an early morning note, a market strategist expressed fear that the heavy weekly fall in foreign exchange reserves may lead to further pressure on the rupee.
Analyst Fahad M. Khan at JS Global stated that throughout both the trading sessions, the index hovered in the positive zone.
Although volumes remained low, value buying was observed in certain stocks like PSO, PTC and Engro. The analyst expects the market to remain range bound in the next few trading sessions where any dip would be an opportunity to accumulate fundamentally strong stocks.
Dealers on the Sherman Securities sales desk stated that the low turnover day was definitely better than Thursday, the reason being that the two trading days have been merged to make one accounting period and the settlement of the trades fall after more than a week i.e. after Eid vacations.
However, cautious optimism prevailed and market saw profit taking once the index was up around 1pc. Overall it was a mixed performance with oil slightly doing better. POL, PPL, PSO were up 1.3pc, 0.5pc and 2.2pc respectively while OGDC was down 0.2pc. Hubco was the highest traded stock with institutional activity on both sides.
Ahsan Mehanti at Arif Habib Corp commented that stronger recovery was witnessed at the bourse, as the quarter-end results season was about to begin and institutional buying interest led by oil stocks after Nepra finalised power tariff hike easing concerns for over Rs157 billion circular debt re-building in the energy sector. Moreover, recovery in global stocks and commodities amid hopes for resolution of US debt ceiling issues, the $3.9bn record home remittances data for 1QFY14 and YoY fall in trade deficit data played a catalyst role in bullish sentiments.
Although turnover in terms of number of shares declined by nearly 6m on Friday over the earlier day, the trading value improved to Rs3.669bn, from Rs3.036bn as some of the heavyweights changed hands on Friday.
Market capitalisation was up by Rs21bn to Rs5.196 trillion.
On the top 10-traded list, Hub Power Company with turnover of 7m shares was down by Rs1.05 to Rs59.86, PTCL closed one paisa down to Rs25.37 on 5m shares, the stock receding in the last half hour, though earlier in trading it has made intra-day high at Rs26.43, Telecard on turnover of 5m shares rose 8 paisa to Rs5.81, the two telecom stocks attracting investor interest on the prospects of early auction of 3G licence.
Bank of Punjab was up 20 paisa to Rs10.39 on 4m shares, Jah Sidd Co was stronger by 31 paisa to Rs8.47 on 4m shares, NBP was up by 42 paisa to Rs48.91 on 3m shares, Engro Corporation climbed 90 paisa to Rs138.70 on 3m shares and JS Investments on 3m shares gained 21 paisa to Rs8.80.
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