KSE hits all-time high

The local share market witnessed historic trading sessions during the outgoing week ended May 4, 2007 with the benchmark KSE-100 index closing at its all-time high level of 12,512.08 points in its history on Friday on the back of fresh foreign buying and institutional support.
The KSE-100 index surged by 2.3 percent or 276.89 points on week-on-week basis to close at its highest ever level of 12,512.08 points, while the junior free float market capitalisation-based KSE-30 index also closed at its all-time high level of 15,656.39 points with the net gain of 492.16 points on week-on-week basis.
Fresh buying was witnessed during the four-day week as the market remained closed on Tuesday, May 1 on account of International Labour Day. Record exports of cement, increasing SCRAs balances to highest ever level at $737 million and healthy financial results for the first quarter of 2007 encouraged the investors to take fresh positions during the week.
On the back of heavy buying, the KSE-100 index hit it all-time intra-day highest level of 12,534.02 points while the KSE-30 index touched its intra-day highest level of 15,701.64 points on Friday.
The market witnessed healthy trading activity as the ready market volume increased to 342.70 million shares as compared with 249.45 million shares trading during a week earlier. However, the future market turnover declined to 57.61 million shares against 77.55 million shares exchanged hands during the previous week. The market capitalisation surged by 1.8 percent to Rs 3.642 trillion.
The market witnessed a historic trading session on Monday with the KSE-100 index breaching through the ever highest record of 12,273.77 points level in the KSE history and finally closed at its all-time high at 12,369.70 points level with the net gain of 134.51 points on the back of fresh foreign buying and institutional support.
The KSE-100 index's earlier all-time high level record was 12,273.77 which it made on April 17, 2006. The market remained closed on Tuesday due to International Labour Day. On Wednesday, the market witnessed another bullish session and the KSE-100 index continued its upward journey to make new records. The index finally settled at it new highest level of 12,433.22 points with the fresh gain of 63.52 points.
The market opened on a positive note and the KSE-100 index hit 12,483.48 points intra-day high level, however, the index could not sustain that level and finally settled at 12,430.16 points level, down by 3.06 points due to cautious stance of the investors.
The last trading session was another historic day as the KSE-100 index breached through 12,500 points psychological level for the first time in its history and finally closed at its highest ever level of 12,512.08 points with a net gain of 81.92 points on Friday.
The bullish market sentiments continued despite a few dampening domestic factors like suicide bombing in an election rally, limited availability of CFS, hitches on NIT sell-off and possible delay in PSO bidding, said Mohammad Ali, an analyst at Invest Capital & Securities Limited, and added the supporting news came from the encouraging cement numbers. Besides the rise in SCRA figures to $737 million (May 03) also provided impetus to the market.
Cable & electrical goods, engineering, glass & ceramics, cement and woolen scrips were the top gainers on a weekly basis, with an increase of 10 percent, 8 percent, 7 percent 6 percent and 5 five percent, respectively.
Major losers include were textile weaving, automobile assembler, sugar & allied industries, commercial banks and synthetic & rayon that declined by 3 percent, 1 percent, 0.2 percent, 0.2 percent and 0.2 percent respectively. The heavyweights like E&P, fertiliser and cement did not undergo any significant change on a week-on-week basis.
Umer Ayaz at JS Global Capital Limited said that market experienced a broad base growth during the outgoing week. Positive sentiments in the insurance sector was driven on the back of expected insurance policy draft, while the textile sector stocks rallied mainly over expectations that incentives would be given to the textile industry in the coming budget.
Major regional equity markets also touched their all-time highs mainly buoyed by a record close on Wall Street in the US and expectations of good corporate earnings.