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KARACHI: Stocks were on fire for the second straight day on Monday, with the benchmark KSE-100 index recording gains of 511 points, or 1.04 per cent, to close at a new all-time high of 49,876.
Although the index was nearing the 50,000 level and foreign selling continued unabated, local investors threw the caution to the wind and continued to build new positions in almost all sectors.
The gains were underpinned by buying in fertiliser, banking, steel and refineries sectors. As many as 60 stocks hit their upper circuits by the end of trading on Monday.
The trading volume jumped to 600 million shares from 460m shares traded on Friday while the value increased to Rs24.5 billion from Rs22.9bn.
The significant feature of the day’s trading was the huge volume of 214m shares that changed hands in K-Electric, which was 36pc of the day’s total volume.
Analyst Nabeel Haroon at JS Global said that intraday rally was witnessed in the fertiliser sector on the back of the news that the Economic Coordination Committee had endorsed continuation of fertiliser subsidy scheme for 2016-17 and also permitted the export of 300,000 tonnes of urea fertiliser till April 28 without any subsidy. Fatima Fertiliser rose 5pc and Engro Fertilisers 2.05pc.
“Cements came off their highs after the Cherat Cement Company announced expansion by installing third line of 2.1m tonnes, which would take its full capacity to 4.5m tonnes. It revived perceived risk of oversupply in the industry,” analysts at Intermarket Securities said.
DG Khan Cement increased 0.94pc, Lucky Cement 0.31pc and Kohat Cement 0.38pc, whereas Maple Leaf Cement dropped 0.19pc and Pioneer Cement 0.13pc.
Among pharmaceuticals and textiles, Nishat Mills Ltd rose 3.23pc, Abbott Laboratories 4.21pc and Highnoon Laboratories 1.35pc.
Moreover, National Refinery was up 4.52pc and Attock Refinery 4.62pc. International Steels Ltd, International Industries Ltd and Aisha Steel Mills all hit their upper limit. In the automobile sector, Pak Suzuki rose 4.93pc and Honda Atlas Cars gained 4.64pc.
Published in Dawn January 24th, 2017
