Pakistan stocks consolidate recent gains

Stocks consolidated on Friday, with lack of trigger ahead of weekend making investors reluctant to extend the previous day's rally, dealers said.

 “Institutional profit-taking witnessed at the PSX (Pakistan Stock Exchange) amid consolidation post major earning announcements,” said Ahsan Mehanti, analyst at Arif Habib Corp. “Weak sentiments remained in the trading session on renewed concerns for foreign outflows, surging circular debt in the energy sector and dismal payouts in the earnings season.”

The PSX benchmark KSE 100-share Index down 0.15 percent or 72.27 points to close at 49,623.81 points. The highest index of the day remained at 49,891.88 points while the lowest level of the day was recorded at 49,563.12 points. KSE-30 Index remained flat at 26,932.02 points.

Turnover fell by six million shares to 392.02 million shares. Trading value decreased to Rs17.27 billion from Rs17.74 billion, while market capital dropped to Rs9.81 trillion against Rs9.82 trillion. Out of 400 companies’ active in the session, 157 closed in green, 229 in red, while 14 remained unchanged.

Analyst Faizan Ahmed at JS Research said asset values at the KSE-100 index remained volatile during the first half of the week with hefty sell-offs amidst crackdown of regulatory watchdog on some brokerage houses. “The market eventually recovered after developments on MFS product,” he said.

Moreover, the Financial Times Stock Exchange (FTSE) in its semi-annual review included six Pakistani stocks into its World Asia-Pacific (ex-Japan) index, which are HBL, MARI, SEARL, EFERT, FCCL and NML.

Analyst Hammad Aman at Topline Securities said that after two strong sessions, investor preferred to trim their positions ahead of the weekend. “Lack of trigger in cement led DGKC, MLCF and LUCK to decline between 0.7 to 1.5 percent,” he said.  

Banks continued their upward trend on hope of better upcoming corporate results. HBL, UBL continue to gain by 1.3 percent and 0.5 percent respectively.

Highest increase was recorded in shares of Colgate Palmolive, which rose by Rs94.58 to Rs2,024.58/share, followed by Sapphire Fiber that increased by Rs47.50 to Rs997.55/share. Major decline was noted in shares of Wyeth Pak Ltd, which fell by Rs171.47 to Rs3,258.03/share, followed by Nestle Pakistan that decreased by Rs144 to Rs9,011/share. Significant turnover was recorded in stocks of Lotte Chemical, Azgard Nine, Silk Bank Ltd, K-Electric Ltd, Power Cement Ltd, Sui Southern Gas Company Limited, Aisha Steel Mills, TRG Pak Ltd, Engro Polymer and Dost Steels Ltd.

Lotte Chemical remained the volume leader with 60.19 million shares with an increase of 44 paisas to Rs12.26/share. It was followed by Azgard Nine with 37.61 million shares with an increase of Re1.00 to Rs10.92/share. Shares’ turnover in the future contracts decreased to 46.93 million shares from 64.58 million shares traded in the previous session.