KARACHI: The stock market closed flat on Friday with the index up by 11.51 points to settle at 35,741.52.

The activity was lacklustre as volume slipped to 299 million shares of Rs10.8 billion from 428m shares of Rs14.5bn value traded the earlier day.

Foreign investors bought $0.55m worth stocks.

Analyst Ahsan Mehanti at Arif Habib Corp stated that the session saw institutional profit-taking in blue-chip cement and fertiliser scrips, after dismal cement dispatch data for July 2015 and below expected earnings announcements in the fertiliser sector.

Oil scrips remained weak.

Hopes for release of IMF tranche under EFF later next month and easing political concerns played a catalyst role in bullish activity.

During the week, the KSE-100 index declined by 73 points (0.21 per cent), which dealers at Topline Securities attributed to futures rollover.

Major gains were seen in industrial transportation (8.3pc), software and computer services (6.1pc) and life insurance (5.5pc), while major decline was witnessed in real estate investment and services (16.3pc), media (4.9pc) and financial services (4.4pc).

JS Global Capital Head of Research Syed Atif Zafar said: “The outgoing week saw higher volatility as rumours regarding SECP taking notice of abnormal activity in small cap stocks created uneasiness in the market.”

The oil and gas sector (particularly refineries) saw some buying interest. Cements witnessed profit-taking.

According to AKD Securities, leading gainers during the week were: MEBL, HCAR, AGTL and FATIMA, while laggards were LOTCHEM, FFBL, MLCF and EFOODS.

Average daily turnover dipped by 39pc week-on-week to 402.7m shares, while foreign inflow during the week was recorded at $3.03m against the outflow of $7.92m a week earlier.

Published in Dawn, August 1st, 2015

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