Stocks gain another 31 points amid positive outlook
By Our Staff Reporter
KARACHI, Dec 28: Massive activity in PTCL and Fauji Fertilizer Bin Qasim on heavy buying featured the Tuesday's stock market where other leading shares also rose amid a briskly traded session. The KSE index rose by 31.67 points at 6,077.83.
But the broader market was a bit hesitant to follow the price flare-up on selective counters as bulk of the support remained confined to PTCL and some other leading shares amid reports of higher corporate dividend from the textile and sugar companies.
"No one could rule out the possibility of advent of foreign buying in PTCL ahead of its proposed sell-off by the middle of the next year", leading analysts said "renewed buying euphoria may have some other reasons also instances of foreign buying are there".
The KSE 100-share index, therefore, maintained its winning streak as investors were not inclined to take even a technical breather in a highly overbought market. It gained another 31.67 points at 6,077.83.
Massive fresh speculative buying in PTCL and OGDC continue to push the index to its career best level each session on the strength of their weight age in the index. Both have about 36 per cent weight age in the KSE 100-share index and are capable of setting its future direction, some brokers said.
"Any amount of investment in them is terribly safe and promises handsome increase in the capital gains", they said "even in case of the market crash for some external negative reasons there is no financial risk involved as far as the two and some others leading issues are concerned".
After Monday's relative lull, the KSE 100-share index resumed its upward drive apparently to hit the new chart point of 6,100 and close the fading year around 6,200 points.
It finally ended modestly reacted from the early highs at 6,077.83, only 22 points short of its next target, up by 31.67 points as compared to 6,046.16 a day earlier.
There may not be many cogent reasons behind the market's sustained run-up beyond the index level of 6,000, some analysts feel it could fall from the current highs alone on technical selling after the year-end mopping operations both by the banks and institutional traders end.
"Reports from the carryover market are not that encouraging where the investment figure soared to an all-time record high of Rs35 billion", says an analyst "stakeholders seem to have decided to hold on to their positions and are expected to roll over them to the next year".
That creates doubts whether or not the new year opening will be as robust as it has been a year ago as a massive free float from the carryover market could play havoc with the current bullish outlook, he adds.
But some others claim much has changed since then and market is expected to follow the positive news from the corporate sector rather than external factors. Leading gainers were led by AKD Securities, Javed Omer and Siemens Pakistan, up by Rs14.75 to Rs24.75 followed by Ayesha Textiles, Gadoon Textiles, Gul Ahmed Textiles, Noon Sugar, Faisal Spinning, Shahtaj Sugar and Artistic Denim, up by Rs4 to Rs8.
Prominent losers included EFU Life, Dawood Lawrence, Buxly Paints, Sapphire Fibre, and Lakson Tobacco, off Rs3.75 to Rs7.90. Others fell fractionally. Owing to a massive activity in PTCL, volume figure soared to 514m shares but losers forced a modest edge over the gainers at 203 to 175, with 51 shares holding on to the last levels.
PTCL topped the list of most actives, up by 95 paisa at Rs43.70 on 138m shares followed by Fauji Fertilizer Bin Qasim, higher by Rs1.15 at Rs30.25 on 106m shares, OGDC, firm by 50 paisa at Rs73.05 on 59m shares, Bank of Punjab, higher 85 paisa at Rs66.50 on 31m shares and Engro Chemical, up by Rs2.20 at Rs123.70 on 17m shares.
Other actives were led by Nishat Mills, firm 40 paisa on 15m shares, Hub-Power, steady 10 paisa on 14m shares, MCB, firm by five paisa also on 14m shares, Sui Southern Gas, up by 50 paisa on 14m shares and National Bank, lower 15 paisa on 11m shares.
FORWARD COUNTER: PTCL also topped the list of actives on this counter, up by 85 paisa at Rs44.40 on 20m shares followed by Fauji Fertilizer Bin Qasim, higher by Rs1.20 at Rs30.60 also on 20m shares, PPL, off 75 paisa at Rs138.05 on 9m shares, Engro Chemical, higher by Rs2.20 at Rs125.45 on 8m shares and OGDC, up by 45 paisa at Rs74.05 on 7m shares.
DEFAULTER COMPANIES: Crescent Standard Bank came for fresh support and rose by 40 paisa at Rs13.75 on 0.727m shares followed by S.S. Oils, higher by 80 paisa at Rs18.80 on 0.174m shares and Mukhtar Textiles, up by 20 paisa at Rs7.75 on 0.143m shares. Some others including Unity Modaraba and Suzuki Motorcycles were also actively traded.
DIVIDEND: Nagina Cotton, cash 15 per cent, Nagina Cotton (preference shares), 13 per cent, Shams Textiles, 17.5 per cent, Suraj Cotton, 20 per cent, Habib Sugar, 40 per cent, Metropolitan Steel, Ayesha Textiles, Sindh Abadgar's Sugar, nil.
BOARD MEETINGS: Fawad Textiles, on Dec 29, Mubarak Textiles, Premier Sugar, Frontier Sugar, Chashma Sugar, and Jubilee Spinning on Jan 3, 2005, Ahmed Spinning, Bawany Sugar and Al-Asif Sugar on Jan 4.
