Investors thronged Pakistan's Karachi Stock Exchange (KSE) on Thursday making full use of the equities available at rather attractive levels as the main index regained the psychological level of 10,700 points.
The benchmark KSE 100-Index surged by 0.80 percent or 84.54 points to close at 10,702.19 levels, KSE All Share Index gained 0. 74 percent or 54.85 points to conclude at 7,443.72, KSE 30-Index upped by 1 percent or 101.52 points to end at 10,279.01, and KMI 30-Index bolstered by 1.05 percent or 176.81 points to finish the day at 16,972.16 levels here.
After a relatively positive start, market witnessed a brief bearish spell that dragged it to the lowest level of 10,604.82 within the first hour. However, the main index never looked back after the initial pressure and continued to multiply gains as investors continued to invest in the banking sector where Bank of Punjab (BoP), Bank Al-Falah Limited (BAFL), and Jahangir Siddiqui Company Limited (JSCL), got maximum benefit. The key index continued to surge all day long and towards the final moments of the trading day it hit the intraday highest level of 10,729.22. A late selling spree failed to snatch the 10,700-mark from the main index and it settled just above the psychological levels.
Investors, both local and foreign, showed huge interest in the Lotte Pakistan PTA Limited which helped the market in recording trading of 125.914 million shares which is 19.755 million shares more when compared with Wednesday's turnovers of 106.159 million shares.
Syed Faran Rizvi, Director SMH Financial Solution informed Xinhua here that the market once again hit its 52-week high on Wednesday and bettered it Thursday.
For the final session of the week, we are seeing some cautious trading by the intraday traders as they would like to take profits ahead of the weekend. However, as the market broke its resistance level, there are chances that bulls would further take center stage at the KSE on Friday," he added.
According to the figures released by the National Clearing Company of Pakistan Limited (NCCPL) for Wednesday, the foreign investors continued their buying spree at the Exchange with net buying of 360.220 million rupees (4.188 million U.S. dollars).
Ghazi Naseem of Azeetrade Securities (Pvt) Limited was of the view that things are still quite bumpy on the economic front as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) officials have clearly showed their dismay over Government of Pakistan's inaction on the Reformed General Sales Tax (RGST).
"Investors sentiments further dampened on the news that the SECP is not happy with the appointment of the KSE Extra Ordinary General Meeting (EOGM) held yesterday," he noted.
Talking about the upcoming inflation numbers, Ghazi Naseem said that the CPI figures are likely to surge to 18-month high in October as the recent catastrophic floods along with disruption in supply of food chain is expected to cause October 2010 CPI inflation to jump at 16.38 percent YoY, pushing MoM CPI inflation to 1.53 percent.
"We expect once again food inflation is expected to remain the main culprit behind rapid inflation," he added.
In broader market, a total of 388 companies traded hands during the course of the day where 213 issues got favors from the investors and recorded upward movement, prices of 152 scrips ended down, while rates of remaining 23 equities stayed unchanged.
Lotte Pakistan PTA Limited was the top most traded scrip of the day as it outperformed other scrips by a huge margin registering trading numbers of 40.024 million shares. Bank of Punjab, Bank Al- Falah Limited, Jahangir Siddiqui Company Limited, and Dera Ghazi Khan Cement Limited followed the suit and recorded turnovers of 7. 974 million, 5.951 million, 5.476 million, and 5.252 million shares respectively.
