The Karachi share market seems to have embarked on recovery path owing, partly, to the appearance of a strong trigger in the face of State Bank's monetary policy decision due later this month. On Thursday, the KSE-100 index gained another 126 points to close at 33,368.84 points against 33,242.95 points Wednesday.
"Stocks closed bullish amid recovery led by select scrips across the board on strong earnings outlook," viewed Ahsan Mehanti, equity analyst at Arif Habib Corp.
Recovering international crude oil prices, reported record growth in cement and fertilizer sales in Jan'15 and speculations ahead of the policy rate announcement this month were catalysts for the day's bullish sentiment, he said.
Muhammad Mobeen of JS Research said Thursday's was a volatile session. The analyst, however, expects the market to pick up momentum due to a likely downward revision by the State Bank in its discount rate for the next couple of months.
Against their net buying of $61,546 Wednesday, foreign investors offloaded their portfolios, which reflected in their net selling of $2.87 million.
As Mobeen described it, the turnover was lacklustre and contracted to 177 million shares from previous 180 million. The value of stocks traded depleted to Rs 9 billion from Rs 11.22 billion of the previous trading session.
Of the total 361 scrips, 193 went up, 150 lost their worth while 18 stayed unchanged. The market capital inched up to Rs 7.518 trillion compared to Rs 7.496 trillion of last session.
K-Electric was the day's volume leader with 20.3 million shares. The stock closed at Rs 8.00, marking a 10-paisa per share gain.
Other most traded scrips were Jahangir Siddiqui Company, 15 million; Pak Elektron, 14 million; TRG Pakistan, nine million; Hum Network, 8.5 million; Fauji Fertilizer Bin Qasim, 7.2 million; Pakistan International Bulk Terminal, 5.7 million; Engro Foods, 5.5 million; Fatima Fertilizer, 3.8 million and Lafarge Pakistan, 3.6 million shares.
Mobeen observed Fatima reaching its upper circuit on the back of investors' expectation that the stock would report increased profitability due to positives such as de-bottlenecking of its Ammonia plant and expected monetary easing.
The PSO with 2.5 percent growth led the heavyweight oil and gas sector because of a slight recovery in benchmark US WTI crude oil prices.
FEROZ, down 3.5 percent, stayed under pressure following what the analysts said the announcement of cut in Hepatitis C drug Sovaldi prices.
On the futures market volumes remained subdued at 21 million contracts against 31 million a day earlier.
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