KARACHI: Stocks extended the rally into the second day on Wednesday with the KSE-100 index recording another huge gain of 270.22 points or 0.91 per cent to close a step below the 30,000-level at 29,996.61.

The stocks surged entirely on foreign buying worth $6.51 million, which including the earlier day’s purchases of $3.38 worth stocks, saw inflows at $9.89m.

Incidentally all the local participants, both institutional and individuals decided to take profit on Wednesday.

Analyst Irfan Iqbal stated that healthy participation in the Saif Power book building and Engro Powergen Qadirpur initial public offering (IPO) also pointed to strong appetite for equities.

“High levels of cash held by local business groups, low fixed income instrument yields coupled with foreign institutional interest are being seen as reasons for the resilience of the market despite political uncertainties,” he asserted.

Analyst Abdul Azeem at Invest capital commented that during Sept 14, foreign portfolio inflows improved 48pc month-on-month to $53m as compared to $36m during Aug.

Banks and DFIs were major sellers on local front with net selling of $32m during Sept followed by companies and individuals with an outflow of $14m and $8.2m. Mutual funds invested $18.2m during Sept.

On a cumulative basis, net inflow of $157m was witnessed during 1QFY15 as compared to outflow of $94m during same period last year.

Foundation Securities added: “Where political hiccups and floods dampened the local sentiment, improved foreign participants imparted traction to local bourse in Sept. Foreigners remained net buyers with a net inflow of $53m; major interest seen in Oil and gas sector.”

Dealers said that Lafarge Cement was higher by 0.6pc on Wednesday with second highest volume of 8.7m shares traded as the company announced an extra ordinary general meeting for the Oct 21.

Published in Dawn, October 2nd , 2014