Daily Times

KARACHI: The KSE-100 movements Wednesday were reminiscent of a seesaw, where the local bourse juggled between green and red, making an intraday low of -389 points, followed by an intraday high of +170 points to close at 40,994 levels, down 158 points.

Elixir Research’s analyst Muratza Jafar said energy stocks traded in deep red owing to sharp fall in international oil prices.

“We expect declining international oil prices to provide much needed relief to external account where we estimate it to result in USD0.8 billion lower oil imports for every USD5/bbl decline in oil prices”, said Jafar.

An equity analyst Maaz Mulla attributed this divergent trend in the trading sessions to the changes made in the most recent MSCI Semi-Annual Index Review (effective November 30th 2018) which has been broadly in line with market expectations.

MSCI has moved Lucky Cement (LUCK) and United Bank (UBL) from its Global Standard Index to the Global Small Cap Index. Maple Leaf Cement (MLCF) and Honda Atlas Cars (HCAR) have been deleted from the MSCI Global Small Cap Index.

Traded value stood at $99 million, up 93 percent, while volumes clock in at 255 million shares, up 44 percent. Furthermore, major contribution to total market volume came from STPL (+4.37%), LOTCHEM (+2.09%) and TRG (-4.85%). Exploration and Production (E&P) sector contributed -227 points to the decreasing index as crude oil price edged lower in the international market trading at $55.85/bbl.

Pakistan Oil Fields (POL), Pakistan Petroleum Limited (PPL) and Oil and Gas Development Company (OGDC) traded in negative throughout the day.

Investor’s interest was witnessed in the cement sector where big players boosted the index by +74 points to close higher than its previous day close. DGKC (+4.41%), CHCC (+5%), PIOC (+5%), LUCK (+2.92%) and MLCF (+2.89%) closed in the green zone.

Mulla expects the market to depict a similar trend, therefore he recommends investors to see any downside in the market as an opportunity to buy in cement, consumer and banking sector.

Published in Daily Times, November 15^th 2018.