KARACHI, May 6: The KSE-100 index closed with measly gains of 30 points at 19,256.70 points on Monday. Although it represented a new high, the index retreated on extensive late session profit-taking, from the early morning heavy gains of 220 points, which had carried the benchmark to the day’s highest at 19,445.27 points.

While the third-tier stock took a back seat, the high valued stocks were in the forefront of trading on Monday, which represented that retail investors and weak holders had moved to the sidelines.

The fact that institutional investors also decided to book profit showed their nervousness ahead of the elections on Saturday. Most were fearful as uncertainty over the law and order situation had deepened.

A report released by the Topline Securities calculated that the local bourse has rallied 11pc during the past three months. It was stated to be line with past trends when the Pakistan markets had gained on average 12pc in three months before elections in the last two decades.

“This time foreign funds have also played a key role as they have invested approximately $85m (excluding Unilever buyback inflows) in the past three months”, analysts affirmed.

Regarding the Monday’s trend, analyst Mujtaba Barakzai at JS Global stated that the KSE-100 index had made a new intraday high of 19,444 fueled by fresh buying in PPL (with the news of expansion strategies). The market also witnessed foreign interest in heavyweight, OGDC.

Also the fertiliser stocks, FFC with good dividend yield, and Engro on the basis of gas allocation were among the investors’ favourites for the day. The figures released by the National Clearing Company of Pakistan showed that the buyers on Monday were just the foreign funds which poured in $8.78 million.

The overwhelming part of the sum, however, represented the inflow of funds from Unilever Overseas, as the company continues to buy-back stocks held by other investors. Other than that, all local individual and institutional investors were ‘net sellers’ for the day with Companies offloading stocks worth $1.29 million; banks selling off shares of the value of $1.26 million; Mutual funds also trimming portfolio by $1.09 million, after several day’s of net buy.

Individuals sold $1.79 and ‘other organisations’ $1.79 million worth stock. The market capitalization based KSE-30 index was up by 16.90 points to 14,814.62 points.

Turnover improved to 137 million shares on Monday, from 136 million shares traded the previous Friday. Trading value increased to Rs7.088 billion, from Rs6.707 billion. Market capitalisation saw addition of Rs23 billion to Rs4.775 trillion, from Rs4.752 trillion.

The two biggest gainers for the day were Nestle Pakistan up by Rs167.50 to Rs7150, followed by Colgate Palmolive higher by Rs80 to Rs2090.

Among the 393 stocks that came up for trading on Monday, the gainers and losers were even at 189 each.

On the ten volume leaders’ list, Fauji Cement saw trading in 11m shares, up by 4 paisa to Rs9.01, International Steel gained 88 paisa to Rs17.48 on 8m shares.

Engro Corporation climbed by Rs1.50 to Rs135.07 on 8m shares, TRG Pakistan shed 10 paisa to Rs9.94 on 5m shares, Dawood Hercules added 77 paisa to Friday’s hefty gains and closed at Rs59.02 on 5m shares, PTCL was up by 16 paisa to Rs17.87 on 5m shares, Pakistan Petroleum jumped by Rs4.52 to Rs194.98 on 4m shares.

Lotte Capital slipped 15 paisa to Rs7.55 on 4m shares, Maple Leaf Cement slid 20 paisa to Rs18.50 on 4m shares and Dewan Motors added 25 paisa to Rs3.35 on 4m shares.