KARACHI: The losing spree at the stock market came to a halt on Wednesday after the KSE-100 index finished with a marginal gain of 54.18 points at 33,242.95.

The index had lost 3.67 per cent in the last seven sessions.

The bulls staged a comeback with a vengeance in the early part of the trading session to push the index up by more than 275 points over the earlier day’s closing. However, due to lack of catalysts and investors’ fear over the recent losses, profit-taking ensued, mostly in overvalued stocks.

Foreign outflows slowed down to $0.06 million on Wednesday while local participants played on both sides.

“Investors remained cautious due to fear of continuous foreign outflows and selling by mutual funds,” commented Samar Iqbal, VP Equity Sales at Topline Securities.

He added that local investors were keenly watching foreign fund managers’ activity to judge the future direction of the market which has seen year-to-date net outflow of $60m.

Trading value on Wednesday stood at Rs11.2 billion, down from Rs13.4bn the earlier day. Cement giant LUCK declined by 2pc as investors decided to book profit after the share had gained 4pc on Tuesday.

Analyst Ahsan Mehanti at Arif Habib Corp said the stocks showed recovery led by power and auto sectors on strong earnings outlook.

Low international oil prices, record growth in cement sales, falling CPI Inflation and PIB yields, which indicated possible SBP policy rate cut this month played a catalyst role in positive sentiments at KSE.

Analyst Arhum Ghous said that selling was witnessed in PAEL with the stock down 4.4pc as investors booked profits after a long run up. Volatility remained in Engro and Efert as the stocks witnessed a large gap between its high and low.

Published in Dawn, March 5th, 2015

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