Stocks add 184 points to overnight rally

Published December 20, 2014
Karachi Stock Exchange. — Reuters/File
Karachi Stock Exchange. — Reuters/File

KARACHI: Stocks extended the rally on Friday with the KSE-100 index adding 183.70 points to close at 31,011.15.

Investors were relieved over the end of foreign selling as a small Foreign Inves­tors Portfolio Investment (FIPI) inflow of $0.16 million was witnessed.

Analyst Ovais Ahsan commented that the market closed on a strong note as the government and the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) resumed talks, lifting investor sentiments and stock prices across the board.

Expectations that the government would further reduce retail prices of petroleum products by Rs5 to 10 per litre also kept participants bullish with the outlook for inflation looking tame, raising prospects of further interest rate cuts.

Mixed trend was witnessed in oil and gas sector as OGDCL and PPL appreciated by 1.68 per cent and 0.69pc, respectively. Selling was observed in banking sector with BOP and KASBB down by 1pc and 3.7pc. In cements CHCC, FCCL and MLCF were up by 2.23pc, 1.42pc and 0.84pc, respectively.

Analyst Fahad Hussain Khan at Adam Securities observed that the first half of the session on Friday remained volatile while sentiments received a boost in the second half as the armed forces meeting decided to take decisive action against militants.

Over the week, the KSE-100 index stood down by 579 points or 1.83pc with average daily volume of 203m shares.

Foreign selling remained the foremost worry for the market as the FIPI outflow stood at $30.24m, up 25pc over the previous week’s selling at $24m.

In his weekly report, Abdul Azeem at Invest Cap cautioned that the rising power receivables could have negative effect on the power stocks.

Published in Dawn, December 20th, 2014

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