KARACHI: Stocks continued to climb for the third consecutive day on Thursday with the index adding 527.19 points, or 1.72 per cent, to close at 31,132.25.

The support came from the foreign investors who bought stocks in the huge sum of $11.93 million. Market participants celebrated the return of the foreign buyers who have been the net sellers of $124.88m year-to-date.

Local institutional and individual investors took courage to tiptoe into the market. However, ‘companies’ decided to take profit and remained the major sellers at net $10.51m.

“The continued support from local institutions helped the KSE-100 index to rise by 4pc in four trading sessions this week,” commented Samar Iqbal, VP Equity Sales at Topline Securities.

On Thursday, the advance to decline ratio in the broader market remained in favour of the bulls.

Volumes at 202m shares and trading value of Rs10.3 billion, however, remained lower than 2015 year-to-date average volume at 238m shares of Rs13.3bn value. Release of $500m IMF tranche and fall in rates of both NSS and T-bills helped boost sentiments.

The dust on the political front also seemed to be settling as the government and Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf signed an MoU on the formation of a judicial commission.

A senior analyst at a major brokerage house stated that the CPI inflation in March at 2.49pc helped major buying in the cement and fertiliser sector as the market could look forward to a further 50-100 basis points cut in the upcoming monetary policy. In the cement sector, FCCL, CHCC, DGKC, PIOC and LPCL rose by 4.8pc, 5pc, 4.4pc, 3.8pc and 5.8pc, respectively.

PAEL announced 2014 earnings at Rs2.2bn (eps at Rs5.6) on Thursday, representing an upsurge by a massive 269pc YoY, which sent its stock to hit the ‘upper circuit’.

In the banking sector, NBP, HMB, AKBL, BAHL, MEBL and FABL rose by 5pc, 5pc, 4.9pc, 3.1pc, 2.2pc and 2.1pc.

Published in Dawn, April 3rd, 2015

On a mobile phone? Get the Dawn Mobile App: Apple Store | Google Play