Daily Times

KARACHI: Pakistan equities closed positive on Tuesday after witnessing a volatile session where benchmark KSE100 index settled above 39,450 points level. The benchmark KSE-100 index gaining 164.33 points closed at 39452.81 points level.

Market continued its bearish momentum from previous day and touched a low of 38,561 level intra-day, down 727 points or 1.9 percent. Press conference from media wing of Pak Armed Forces in the second half regarding security plan for timely elections boosted investor’s confidence and brought recovery in the market.

Traded volumes increased by 36 percent over previous day’s session to 167 million shares, while value traded increased to Rs 8.4 billion. Volume leaders were Fauji Cement with 15.24 million shares traded, Engro Polymer with 13.1 million shares traded and DG Khan Cement with 5.8 million shares traded.

Index heavy Financial and Exploration and Productions (E&Ps) led the recovery and supported the market. Cements however failed to catch up on the positive momentum and closed lower. DG Khan Cement (DGKC) lost 2.16 percent; Maple Leaf Cement (MLCF) declined by 3.34 percent, Best Way Cement (BWCL) went down by 3.32 percent. Meanwhile, on the corporate front, Loads limited (LOADS) gained 1.9 percent following announcement of filing of an Initial Public Offering (IPO) of its subsidiary “Hi-Tech Alloy Wheels”.

Despite Tuesday’s intra-day recovery, we expect broader market to remain weak and may see declines towards 38,200 / 37,900 levels due to heated political sentiments ahead of return of ousted PM later this week, said an Elixir Securities’ analyst Muhammad Arbash. Mixed sentiments were witnessed in the cement sector where Attock cement, Cherat Cement Dandot Cement, Dewan Cement and Fecto Cement closed in green while on the flip side Bestway Cement, DG Khan Cement Fauji Cement Company and Maple Leaf Cement closed in red. Financials were on recovery spree on Tuesday as all Major banjks including Habib Bank Limited (HBL), Faysal Bank, Bank of Punjab, Allied Bank of Pakistan, Askari BAnjk Limited National Bank of Pakistan closed in the red, while only the Bank Islami managed to close in green. Shares of 152 companies surged while shares of 178 companies went down amongst total 331 companies’ shares traded on Tuesday.

Published in Daily Times, July 11^th 2018.