Daily Times

KARACHI: Trading at Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) remained range bound making an intraday low of 107 and high of 183 points, closing up 94 points at 43,347 level. Total volume for the day was 223 million shares as compared to 219 million shares in previous trading session.

The market witnessed some consolidation during trading in a narrow 290 points range, opening on a slightly negative note later recovered to close up by 94 points to 0.2 percent.

Participation maintained yesterday’s levels and volume ticked up 2 percent day to day while traded value was up 6 percent. Equities closed a little higher in a volatile and range-bound trading session after a sideways open struggled for direction that resulted in benchmark KSE-100 Index oscillating around previous day’s close until mid day.

Later on buying in select Index notably MCB Bank MCB PA plus 1.9%, United Bank PA plus 1.5% and Nishat Mills PA plus 3.2% helped Index to climb a small upward trajectory; however selling pressure in last thirty minutes of trading erased half of intra-day gains. On results front Fauji Cement PA plus 1.2% closed in green after announcing earnings a little higher than estimates. Cement sector witnessed buying spree as most stocks gained to close in green zone. ACPL (+2.36%), CHCC (+1.59%), DGKC (+0.57%), MLCF (+1.70%) were among the major gainers from the sector. FCCL (+1.24%) from the cement sector announced its financial result for FY17, where Company reported an EPS of Rs 1.89 and announced final cash dividend of Rs 0.90. Market is expected to recover in near term over some clarity on political front, while relatively softer current account deficit for Aug-2017 also showed signs of improvements in economic indicators. The stock analyst recommends investors to adopt selective buying strategy in stocks based on strong fundamentals. Retail favorite Worldcall Telecom witnessed heavy turnover of 26.4 million shares while shedding 7.5% to close at Rs 3.47 per share. On the sector front, Cements added 24 points, Textiles added 21 and Nishat Chunian gained 5% in hopes of export measures to be announced in upcoming ECC meeting.

WTL (-10%) and TRG (+0.52%) from tech sector led volume with 26 million shares and 24 million shares traded respectively. HBL (-1.85%) lost to close in red zone on news that Moody’s has downgraded Bank’s BCA rating to Caa1 from B3, and that State Bank has started probing into issues regarding HBL’s recent penalty. Fertilisers shed 17 points while banks held back 11 points in hopes of export measures to be announced in upcoming ECC meeting.

Foreigners were net buyers of $1.0 million. Buying was concentrated in OMCs ($1.1 million), Textile ($0.7 million) and Cement ($0.4 million) while E&Ps witnessed outflows of $1.2 million.

The analysts expect that the market would likely to consolidate and trade range-bound in near term with KSE-100 index hovering in a range of 400-500 points with support and resistance defined around 43,000 and 43,700 levels respectively.

Published in Daily Times, September 21^st 2017.