KARACHI: The spectacular rally induced by the foreign investors extended into the second day on Wednesday with the KSE-100 index recording another sharp spurt of 419.29 points (0.98 per cent) to settle at 43,358.97.

The index is slightly short of the current year’s highest level of 43,631 points.

Including the net purchases of equities worth $7.47m on Wednesday, foreign portfolio inflows in just the last 12 sessions of trading in 2018 amounts to $71.5m, which is quite in contrast to heavy foreign outflows seen the previous year.

Most analysts reckon that the foreign fund managers, who were reducing their positions on the expectations of devaluation of the rupee, were now ploughing back the money into the local market, following the fall of the value of Rupee by around 5pc against the dollar. Incidentally, local participants including both individuals and institutions were net sellers. On the news front, expectations of Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi about to unveil incentive-led new exports package was a big positive. Yet the locals were spooked by the heated political atmosphere as the one-day protest in Lahore by opposition parties was under way.

The volume declined 6pc over the previous day to 151m shares. Second and third-tier scrips were main the volume leaders as retail investors were engaged in quick bouts of buying and selling. Pace (Pak), Azgard Nine, Lotte Chemical, K-Electric contributed 35m shares accounting for nearly a quarter of the total turnover. The traded value of stocks also dropped 8pc to Rs6.65bn.

Habib Bank was up 1.4pc, The Searle 4.9pc, Pakistan Petroleum 1pc, MCB Bank 0.8pc and Nishat Mills 3.4pc, cumulatively contributing 123 points to the index gains.

On the sector front; index heavy banks added 123 points followed by cements 46 points and E&P 38 points.

Published in Dawn, January 18th, 2018