Daily Times

Karachi: Pakistan stocks showed a strong recovery spurred by an upbeat FDI report for Jul-Jan’17 and fortnight rise in local POL prices. The main index recovered from the previous fall based on lucrative valuation to gain by 374 points or 0.75 percent to close at the 49,588 level.

Stocks showed strong recovery after investor’s bank on upbeat FDI data for Jul-Jan 2017 and fortnight rise in local POL prices likely to raise earnings outlook for oil sector. Late session pressure witnessed amid surging trade deficit data and rumors on regulatory measures over Margin Trading, said Ahsan Mehanti, senior equity analyst.

DGKC announced its 2QFY17 EPS of Rs 6 per share which was above market consensus. The stock price declined by 0.9 percent. In 2QFY17, DGKC’s consolidated revenue was up 8 percent YoY thanks to sales contribution from cement operations, up 9 percent YoY, on the back of higher local cement demand. Gross margins increased by 137bps YoY to 41 percent in 2QFY17. “We attribute improvement in consolidated margins to lower loss reported by subsidiary Nishat Dairy (55.1 percent stake) compared to last year and better performance by subsidiary Nishat Paper, (55 percent stake), said report by Topline Securities.

MLCF announced 2QFY17 EPS of Rs 2.7 per share along with Rs 2 per share cash dividend which was above expectations. However, the stock price declined by 0.2 percent. MTL closed at its upper limit of 5 percent as it announced impressive earnings of Rs 39.4 per share. In another notice MTL announced that it has decided to explore the possibility of becoming part of a joint venture consortium which is setting up a green field project for assembly and sales of Hyundai Motor.

Overall, volumes decreased by 37 percent to 263 million shares, while value declined by 18.4 percent Rs 14.2 billion/ $135 million. On Wednesday 417 million shares worth Rs 17.4 billion/ $165 million were traded at the bourse.