KARACHI: The Karachi Stock Exchange shrugged off the gloom of previous two days and set its pace for the upward march and gained 279.48 points or +0.89 percent to reach 31518.52 points and volume of 89,545,590 shares on last day of trading, Friday.
The Karachi Stock Exchange opened on a positive note and set off on the recourse to remedy the losses it had suffered over the past two day. The trading began at the overnight closing of 31239.04 points and the stock appeared positive, showing signs of recovery, although it is last day of the trading week. The market, after crossing all-time high of 32,000 points level, plummet over the past two days, leaving the investors high and dry.
As a whole 42.69 per cent of companies witnessed increase in their shares while 12.64 per cent lost their share value and 2.13 per cent companies remained stable. High and Low were 31545.27 and 31239.04 respectively. Total volume traded in the market was 89,545,590 shares.
Pakistan Petroleum (plus 1 percent) and Pakistan Oilfields (plus 1.6 percent) were up on local institutional buying while investors largely ignored Thursday’s proposal of gas tariff hike.Fresh momentum buildup was seen in auto stocks that marched deep into greener pastures on account of attractive valuations. Pharmaceuticals were buzzing scoring steady gains ahead of the drug regulatory authority meeting next week.
Top three traders were Jah.Sidd. Co. with a volume 19,598,000 and price per share of 15.84 (1.00), PIAC(A) with a volume 15,114,500 of price per share of 6.61 (0.82) and Lafarge Pak. with a volume 7,234,000 of price per share of 16.50 (0.39). Top three advancers Rafhan Maize with price per share 10900.00 (478.67), Colgate Palmolive with price per share of 1795.00 (85.00) and Shezan Inter. XDXB share of 937.83 (44.65). Unilever FoodsXD with price per share of 9010.00 (-290.00), Fazal Textile XD with price per share of 901.00 (-39.50) and Sanofi-Aventis per share of 822.63 (-37.37) were the top three decliners.
The reason for the panic and bearish trend is attributed to a figure misquoted by a section of the print media which suggested that in a meeting with the State Bank on Wednesday, the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) mentioned “Rs13.4 billion as cash of the clients held by the suspended brokerage KASB Securities Limited (KSL)”. This sent shivers down the spines as the huge amount had the propensity to pull the entire market down to the pit. Efforts by brokers and other participants to assuage investors’ fears and calm the market proved futile.
The SECP played its proactive role as its Commissioner for Securities Market Division (SMD) Zafar Abdullah rushed in to hold meetings with the stakeholders.
