KSE WEEKLY REVIEW: Karachi stocks see mixed trend, index rises 56 points

KARACHI: The Karachi stock market witnessed intense buying activities during the week as foreign investors continued to buy shares of blue chips like those of oil, banks and fertilizer sectors.

The Karachi Stock Exchange (KSE) 100-share index gained 56.09 points or 0.6 percent to close at 9,058.77 points as compared to 9,002.68 points of the previous week.

The turnover was recorded at 192.75 million shares as compared with 194.58 million shares of the previous week, reflecting a decline of 2.14 percent.

“Foreign buying, again, remained at the heart of the market with foreigners buying shares worth $28.6 million,” said analyst at JS Research Bilal Qamar. “Ease in doing business ranking of Pakistan remained unchanged at 85th rank in the world, where as in Asia, Pakistan notched the first spot according to a report released by the World Bank. This has no doubt attracted offshore investors who bought shares worth $51.0 million and sold shares worth $22.4 million, resulting in a net buying of $28.6 million.”

Moreover, in the T-bill auction on Wednesday, 12-month paper saw its cut off yields rising by 4 basis points with no major impact on the market, he said and added that major participation was witnessed in 12-month paper, which reflected that the banks were expecting another major cut in the yields in future. A total of Rs 92 billion were participated against the target of Rs 50 billion with State Bank of Pakistan accepting Rs 51 billion. Cut off yields on the 12-month paper rose to 12.482 percent while 6-month and 3-month T-bill yields came in at 12.778 percent (up 23bps) and 12.517 percent (up 14bps).

He said textile and fertilizer sectors were among the top performers in the outgoing week with their market capitalisation increasing by 4.4 percent and 2.4 percent, respectively.

The rally in the textile sector was led by positive news from the textile policy and a bright future ahead for the industry, where the procurement for the Rabi season increased urea demand, he added.

“Rise in commodity prices including local cement prices, crude oil prices at $72, lower CPI figure for August at 10.69 percent on yearly basis, rising auto sector growth by 23.37 percent for the first two months of 2009-10, record remittances of $780 million in August and expectations of early resolution of circular debt issue kept the market in the positive zone,” said analyst at Shahzad Chamdia Sec Ahsan Mehanti. staff report. Link...