Stocks closed almost flat on Thursday as investors, awaiting leverage products and Panamagate’s outcome, remained on the sidelines, dealers said.
Analysts said concerns over the leverage issues and uncertainty about Panama case’s hearings fuelled the bearish activities. Analyst Ahsan Mehanti at Arif Habib Limited said stocks closed lower after profit-taking in cement and auto stocks in the post-earnings season.
“Late session interest in banking stocks on reports of rising banking spreads and oil stocks supported the Index to close above the session’s lows after US crude prices surged near to $50/barrel on output cuts,” Mehanti said.
The KSE 100-share Index of the Pakistan Stock Exchange shed 0.03 percent or 16.17 points to close at 48,289.66 points. KSE 30-share Index fell 1.07 points to end at 26,009.04 points. As many as 384 scrips were active; of which 148 increased, 217 decreased and 19 remained unchanged. The ready market volumes stood at 180.608 million as compared to 206.112 million shares a day earlier.
Analyst Arham Ghous at JS Global said another bleak session was witnessed at the local bourse as the benchmark KSE 100 index traded between an intraday high of 35 points and intraday low of 531 points.
Ghous said Pakistan Oilfields (up 0.70 percent) and Oil and Gas Development Company (rising 0.66 percent) recovered as crude oil prices rose after official data showed that US stockpiles eased from the record highs.
Moreover, mix sentiment was witnessed in cement sector. Lucky Cement was down 0.19 percent and Maple Leaf Cement dropped 0.11 percent. On the contrary, Attock Cement (ACPL) was up 1.56 percent on the news that the ACPL’s subsidiary in Iraq established a letter of credit, amounting to $9.75 million for cement grinding unit in favour of a Chinese supplier Hefei Cement Research and Design Institute. The project is likely to come online by March 2018.
Banking sector rebounded due to attractive valuations on Morgan Stanley Capital International’s trigger. HBL inched up 0.12 percent.
Companies, reflecting highest gains, included Unilever Foods up Rs200 to end at Rs6,300/share and Wyeth Pakistan that rose Rs119.45 to close at Rs2,508.45/share.
Companies, with highest losses, included Bata Pakistan down Rs215 to close at Rs4,090/share and Hinopak Motor that fell Rs77.76 to end at Rs1,532.24/share.
Highest volumes were witnessed in K-Electric with a turnover of 28.538 million shares. The scrip shed four paisas to end at Rs9.11/share. Bank of Punjab was the second with a turnover of 16.426 million shares. It gained Re1 to close at Rs15.71/share. Sui Northern Gas was the third with a turnover of 7.76 million shares. It rose Rs1.81 to finish at Rs134.24/share.