Late buying helps index close in green
KARACHI: Stocks remained volatile on Tuesday with the KSE-100 index closing about flat with relatively minor gains of 64.25 points.
Traders said that the investors, already at the edge of their nerves, went into panic-selling as the Privatisation Commission (PC) decided to divest government holdings in the Oil and Gas Development Company (OGDC), Pakistan Petroleum Ltd (PPL) and Kot Addu Power Company.
Reports of possible 10 per cent divestment were making rounds till mid-day. Another analyst stated that the PC board had approved expansion of active privatisation list by adding 10 other entities in the list of units to be privatised.
All of that brought significant selling pressure in OGDC and PPL. Later in the day, the market made a major recovery to reverse the losses and post intra-day high gains of 121 points.
The market recovered as a result of buying activity in power, fertiliser and cement sectors. Investors also remained jittery over the border tensions with India and traded cautiously. There was also no positive news to lift investor sentiments on the economic side.
Volumes declined slightly from 122.1 million shares to 118.3m shares (down 3pc day-on-day). Traded value increased by 39pc to reach $33.5m as against $24.1m.
Stocks that contributed significantly to the volumes include Lotte Chemical, Unity Foods, OGDC, Maple Leaf Cement Factory (MLCF) and Habib Metropolitan Bank, which formed 29pc of total volumes.
Mixed sentiments were noted in the banking stocks where the Habib Bank Ltd (HBL) and MCB Bank closed in the red but United Bank Ltd (UBL) finished in the positive trajectory.
In the autos sector, Indus Motors went up 0.6pc as the company declared its results. Cement scrips were in demand which pushed D. G. Khan to hit its upper circuit. MCLF, Lucky Cement (LUCK) and Fauji Cement Company Ltd also saw buying interest.
Scrips that dragged down the index included HBL which declined by 2.07pc, Bank Al Habib Ltd 3.41pc, OGDC 1.94pc, MCB 1.57pc and PPL 1.55pc.
Positive contributions were made by Hub Power Company up 4.48pc, Engro Corporation 2.54pc, LUCK 3.23pc, Dawood Hercules 3.60pc, UBL 1.53pc and Fauji Fertiliser Company 1.29pc.
Published in Dawn, August 28th, 2019