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Karachi stocks manage to close in green on foreign investment

KARACHI: The Karachi stock market closed in the positive territory due to foreign investment on Thursday despite losing early gains on dismal economic outlook.

The Karachi Stock Exchange (KSE) 100-share index surged by 8.06 points or 0.09 percent to close at 8,924.24 points as compared to the previous session’s 8,916.18 points. The KSE 30-share index closed at 9,411.82 points with a gain of 14.48 points. The KMI 30 index closed at 12,983.13 points with a rise of 40.86 points.

Analysts said that investors remained positive as foreign investment continued to flow in oversold scrips of oil, bank and fertilizer sectors. The market turnover went up by 10.04 percent and traded 154.51 million shares as compared with the previous session’s 140.41 million shares. The overall market capitalisation went up by 0.15 percent and traded Rs 2.583 trillion as against previous session’s Rs 2.579 trillion. Out of total 389 companies, 211 closed in the positive zone, 162 in negative and 16 remained unchanged.

“Over night technical recovery continued till the early hours, inclusion of Engro Chemical in Morgan Stanley Capital International frontier gave the market an excuse for extending the bull run,” said analyst at Aziz Fida Husein and Co Husnein Asghar Ali. “Low value and investment (securities) companies contributed to the turnover and the top three volume leaders contributed 40 percent to the total turnover disallowing prolonged stagnation.” Inability of the main board stocks to continue upward movement forced the steam to fizzle out propelling the index to turn red, he said and added that nevertheless cautious accumulation by local participants in dividend yielding stocks restricted the extended decline, while assumptions’ of a 50 basis points decline in interest rates kept the sellers on back-foot.

With optimism in the air regarding continuity of declining trend in the upcoming policy review, materialisation of grants and loans by the year end, growing remittances and resolution of circular debt are expected to keep the market in the green zone.

Although volumes failed to match with the intensity of positivism, participation of the local corporate and retail participants kept prolonged stagnation away throughout the session.

The KSE 100-share index opened in the green zone with a gain of 32.05 points and at the end of the day closed at 8,924.24 points with an increase of 8.06 points.

Pak PTA Ltd was the volume leader in share market with 27.88 million shares as it closed at Rs 7.13 after opening at Rs 6.53 gaining 60 paisas. staff report

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