Pakistan Stock Exchange witnessed a mixed trend Monday. The benchmark KSE-100 index moving between 48,384.56 points intra-day high and 48,122.48 points low, settled at 48,227.75 points with a net gain of 71.82 points. Foreigners remained net buyers of shares worth $5.5 million.
Trading activity remained low as trading volumes on the ready counter declined by 41 percent to 159.929 million shares as compared to 273.529 million shares traded Friday. The market capitalisation increased by Rs 19 billion to Rs 9.613 trillion. Out of total 380 active scrips, 229 closed in negative, 137 in positive while the value of 14 stocks remained unchanged.
Aisha Steel Mills was the volume leader with 15.891 million shares. It gained Rs 0.10 to close at Rs 25.56 followed by Bank of Punjab that lost Rs 0.60 to close at Rs 13.84 with 11.773 million shares. Azgard Nine closed at Rs 13.01, down Rs 0.35 with 11.400 million shares.
Wyeth Pak and Nestle Pakistan were the top gainers with Rs 120.92 and Rs 105.00, respectively to close at Rs 2,539.37 and Rs 9,200.00. Unilever Foods and Rafhan Maize were the top losers with Rs 310.00 and Rs 137.94, respectively to close at Rs 5,890.00 and Rs 7,262.06.
Nabeel Haroon at JS Global Capital said the market opened on a positive note and retained its previous swing as the index traded between an intraday high of 228 points and intraday low of 35 points to finally close at 48,228 level (up 72 points). Mixed sentiment was witnessed in the banking sector where pressure was seen in the sector across the board during the initial hours of trade but later on some recovery came on the back of CPI numbers that clocked in at 4.94 percent for the month of March 2017 versus 4.22 percent recorded in last month. In the aforementioned sector, UBL (up 3.02 percent) and MCB (up 0.48 percent) managed to close in the green zone whereas HBL (down 0.63 percent) closed lower. INDU (up 5.00 percent) and HACR (up 3.78 percent) in the automobile gained to close in the green zone. INDU gained as the automobile assembler disclosed its Rs 4bn investment plan to expand its annual production capacity. HACR on the other hand gained on the back of the news that total sales for the company during March end FY17 stood at 35,300 units which is the highest ever sales figure achieved by the company. HASCOL (down 2.32 percent) extended its loss on the back of its 2016 result announcement on Friday in which company posted EPS of Rs 10.07 along with a final cash dividend of Rs 3.5/share taking the total payout for 2016 to Rs 7/share.
An analyst at Topline Securities said that the KSE-100 extended momentum built from Friday''s afternoon session; albeit in range bound fashion where initial surge was capped at a high of 48,384 points (up 228 points), where profit taking lead the index to close at 48,228 points, up 72 points. Autos saw some interest with INDU (up 5.0 percent) and HCAR (up 3.8 percent) gaining on news flows reporting that the former revealed expansion plan while the latter achieved highest ever sales. Surprisingly PSMC (down 0.5 percent) closed red despite 1-2 percent announced price increase. CRC producers ASL (up 0.4 percent) and ISL (up 1.2 percent) gained after increasing prices by Rs 1,000/ton; they are sending a message to the market (which was expecting a price reduction due to recent decline in Chinese prices) that local-international prices are not as linked.
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