Karachi stocks gain 175 points

KARACHI: The Karachi stock market faced intense buying activities on Thursday as investors took positions in oil, banks and fertilizer scrips.

According to analysts the reasons behind the bullish trend are decrease in current account deficit to 13.7 percent at $7.45 billion for eight months, strong fundamentals for Pakistan economy and expectation of early resolution of political issues after restoration of judiciary.

The Karachi Stock Exchange (KSE) 100-share index gained 175 points or 2.79 percent to close at 6,441.00 points as compared to 6,266.00 points traded in the previous session. The KSE 30-share index also increased by 211.31 points and closed at 6,980.20 points as compared with 6,768.89 points of the previous session. The KMI 30 index surged by 178.01 points to close at 8,974.16 points as against 8,796.15 points of the previous session.

Analysts said the equity market continued its forward march for the fourth consecutive trading session with healthy volumes traded during the session. The KSE-100 index opened on a positive note and this trend continued throughout the trading session.

The market turnover increased by 18.41 percent and traded 276.79 million shares as compared to previous session’s 233.75 million shares. The overall market capitalisation went up by 2.47 percent and closed at Rs 1.946 trillion as compared with Rs 1.899 trillion traded in the previous session. Out of total 386 companies, 176 closed in positive zone, 199 in negative while 11 remained unchanged.

Furthermore the news of surplus current account balance and budgetary support of 200 million euros assured by EU, financial assistance of $700 million from ADB and WB, and doubling of assistance by US kept the sentiments high.

Materialisation of commitment will not only strengthen the reserves but will also support in stabilising the local currency. Sector and stock swapping kept the benchmark stagnant for a while and constant accumulation allowed bulls to take a dominating position.

Brokers said SBP’s data showed $146 million balance of payments surplus in February 2009 while record dollar inflows, expected IMF tranche for economic support and expectation of reduction in discount rates played a major role in the market’s recovery.

The KSE index opened in the green zone with a gain of 75.65 points and at the end of the day closed at 6441.00 points with a gain of 175 points. – Daily Times

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on Mar 20 2009. Filed under Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry