Daily Times

KARACHI: The bulls at Pakistan stock market celebrated supreme court’s verdict on Panamagate with historical leap as the KSE-100 index surged by more than 1905 points, the largest ever single day upside move, before calming down at 48743.56 with the gain of 1140.08 points.

Share market closed thunderous Thursday positive after taking investors for an unprecedented and the wildest ride ever as benchmark KSE100 Index witnessed a record move of near 2150 points on the day, said analysts at Elixir Securities.

Trading started cautiously as investors awaited Supreme Court’s verdict, institutional flows primarily led by locals helped wider market post modest gains by mid day. Fresh wave of buying followed Court’s decision that averted threat of PM Nawaz Sharif’s disqualification and ordered further probe into allegations against PM and his family.

Key points of the verdict are ,PM was not found guilty, SC ordered further investigation & directed formation of Joint Investigation Team (JIT) comprising of FIA, NAB, MI/ISI, SECP etc.

The JIT have been given a time frame of 60 days to complete its investigation.

Market witnessed huge activity with volumes surging 54 percent to 408 million shares while traded valued exploded 68 percent to Rs 25.7 billion/$245 million.

HBL reported EPS of Rs 6.1, flat YoY and inline with expectations. Amreli Steel ASTL reported EPS of Rs1.1 (-9% YoY), the result was above market expectations.

ASTL through a notice to PSX announced further expansion plans in addition to the expansion currently underway. The current expansion envisions taking re-bar rolling capacity from 180,000 tons to 480,000 tons; while in today’s notice, ASTL is aiming for 750,000 tons of re-bar capacity by FY19.

Equity analysts commenting on the impact of Supreme Court’s verdict said that keeping in view that the PM is not facing immediate threat the market will cheer the clarity in the short term with KSE 100 index likely re-testing previous highs of above 50,000 level.

“Newsflow over probe will continue to challenge upside and trigger resistances given fortnightly hearings on probe by investigative agencies.

Ongoing earnings season and budget related expectations will certainly attempt to regain more limelight in days ahead and we are confident that MSCI EM upgrade related excitement will help
channel fresh liquidity both from domestic and foreign investors”, analysts at Elixir Securities commented.