PSX stages smart recovery

Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) Friday witnessed a healthy recovery on the back of fresh buying, mainly by local investors and institutions. The benchmark KSE-100 index increased by 206.60 points and closed at 48,155.93 points. However, foreign investors remained net sellers of shares worth $2.9 million, withdrawing their investment from the bourse.
Trading activity also improved as daily trading volumes on the ready counter increased to 273.529 million shares as compared to 241.249 million shares traded Thursday. The market capitalization increased by Rs 61 billion to Rs 9.594 trillion. Out of total 381 active scrips, 224 closed in positive, 143 in negative while the value of 14 stocks remained unchanged.
Bank of Punjab was the volume leader with 41.916 million shares. However, it lost Rs 0.61 to close at Rs 14.44 followed by Azgard Nine that gained Rs 0.26 to close at Rs 13.36 with 24.271 million shares. K-Electric closed at Rs 8.18, down Rs 0.03 with 20.953 million shares. Bata Pak and Unilever Foods were the top gainers with Rs 190.00 and Rs 100.00, respectively to close at Rs 4,390.00 and Rs 6,200.00. Wyeth Pak and Colgate Palmolive were the top losers with Rs 127.28 and Rs 105.00, respectively to close at Rs 2,418.45 and Rs 2,060.00.
Nabeel Haroon at JS Global Capital said the market remained under pressure during the first half of the trading session as the index dropped to make an intraday low of 271 points. However, recovery was witnessed in the last hour of the trading session as the index gained to close above 48,000. HASCOL lost value to close in the red zone as the OMC declared its year end result for 2016. In its result company posted EPS of Rs 10.07 which was lower than the market expectation. The result was accompanied by final cash dividend of Rs 3.5/share taking the total payout for 2016 to Rs 7/share. Lower than expected EPS can be attributed to higher than forecasted selling & distribution expenses and a higher effective tax rate. SHEL gained to close on its upper circuit, whereas APL (up 0.95 percent) and PSO (up 0.55 percent) managed to close in the green zone as well. BOP (down 4.05 percent) extended its previous day loss as the banking company declared its result for 2016 yesterday in which it posted EPS of Rs 3.12 along with a right share announcement of 70 percent at a premium of Rs 2/- per share. SEARL (up 2.49 percent) in the pharmaceutical sector gained on the back of material information disseminated in the market that International Brands (Pvt) Limited (IBL) has added around 1.1 million shares of the pharmaceutical company to its current holding. Major contribution to the index came from MCB (up 1.92 percent), MARI (up 5.0 percent) and UBL (up 1.08 percent), whereas on the flip side HBL (down 1.43 percent), LUCK (down 0.83 percent) and FFC (down 0.55 percent) weighed down on the index.