Stocks end on 5-month high; rupee weakens

KARACHI: Pakistani stocks ended on a five month high on Thursday led by the fertiliser and energy sector on expectations of strong corporate results, dealers said.

The Karachi Stock Exchange's benchmark 100-share index ended 1.12 percent, or 139.01 points, higher at 12,508.42. The KSE-index closed at 12,577.61 on Jan. 19.

Turnover rose to 76.95 million shares, compared with 59.47 million shares traded on Wednesday.

"Healthy earning expectations on the back of increased urea prices and handsome payout expectations kept FFBL (Fauji Bin Qasim) the volume leader," said Samar Iqbal, dealer at Topline Securities Ltd.

Corporate results for the year ending June 30 are due to be announced in the second week of July.

According to Invest Capital Investment Bank, FFBL is offering an attractive dividend yield of 17.6 percent for 2011.

FFBL ended 1.78 percent at 43.35 rupees.

In the currency market, the rupee weakened to 85.72/76 to the dollar, from Wednesday's close of 85.59/64, due to increased dollar demand for import payments.

The rupee hit a record low of 86.50 last month, but dealers said the local unit is expected to stay largely stable in the coming days because of increased remittances from Pakistanis working abroad.

According to official data, remittances crossed $10 billion for the first time, hitting $10.1 billion in the first 11 months of the 2010/11 fiscal year, an increase of 25.20 percent compared with the same period last year.

In the money market, overnight rates were flat at 11 percent, unchanged from the previous day's close and dealers said there were some payments of circular debt that came in the market.

Copyright Reuters, 2011