Daily Times

The local bourse continued its positive trajectory on Thursday as the benchmark KSE-100 index closed up by +280 points at 41,998 levels.

Index traded in a narrow range in early hours as investors likely took cues from lower regional markets on global trade worries; however a mid-day rally in cements, pushed the Index higher.

The market kicked off on a positive note, hitting an intraday high of +360 points. There was a brief period where the market went into negative territory in the mid-day, but recovered from thereon and remained in the green zone.

M. Zain ul Abedin, an analyst at Elixir Securities, said Pakistan’s official inclusion in the FATF Grey List will likely remain a non-event, while unconfirmed news flow on the ongoing Tax Amnesty Scheme continues to hint towards its vital success. “We expect the momentum in equities to continue as investors eye increased domestic liquidity. With just one trading day left in the ongoing Fiscal Year 2017-18, some window dressing by institutional investors in illiquid stocks can also be witnessed tomorrow”.

Major heavyweights namely, Habib Bank LImiyed (HBL) gaining 0.2 percent, MCB gaining 0.1 percent, Pakistan Oil Fields (POL) gaining 1.6 percent, Fauji Fertiliser Company (FFC) gaining 0.3 percent, Hubco gaining 0.7 percent and Lucky Cement gaining 4.6 percent cumulatively contributed 103 points to the index.

Traded volumes plummeted by 32 percent day-on-day (DoD) to 160 million shares, while Value Traded decreased to $59 million. Volume leaders were K-Electric with 5 percent increase, Pak Elektron with 1.6 percent rise and TRG with 0.8 percent decline.

Rally was witnessed in cements, where Lucky Cement with 4.6 percent advancement and Maple Leaf Cement (MLCF) with 4.9 percent rise in value closed in the upper circuit.

A mixed sentiment was seen in financials where HBL, MCB and Bank Al-Habib closed in the green, while on the flip side United Bank Limited (UBL), National Bank of Pakistan (NBP) and Bank Alflah (BAFL) closed in the red. An equity analyst Danish Ladhani expects market to remain green with flows from local and foreign institutions directing the market.

Published in Daily Times, June 29^th 2018.