Stocks largely flat as late profit-selling bites

Stocks on Thursday ended hardly changed after opening on a strong note as investors rolled up capital gains across the board in an otherwise bullish market, dealers said.

At Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX), the benchmark KSE-100 Shares Index shed 0.07 percent or 33.37 points to close at 48,093.53 points.

The ready market volumes stood at 889.93 million shares compared with the turnover of 1.04 billion shares in the last trading session.

Topline Securities in its daily market review said range-bound activity prevailed at the bourse.

Higher international oil prices and $200 million credit facility for housing sector proposed by World Bank led the market to open on a positive note and resulted in an intraday high of 307 points, the brokerage said.

However, eleventh-hour profit-taking pushed the market into the negative territory, Topline Securities added.

LUCK was major loser in today’s trading session as it stripped the index of 49 points, whereas TRG added 44 points. As many as 428 scrips were active of which 229 advanced, 172 declined, and 27 remained unchanged.

Ahsan Mehanti at Arif Habib Corp said profit-taking was witnessed at PSX amid dismal surging trade deficit and weak global equities.

He said midsession support was witnessed in autos and energy scrips on upbeat sales data in May and likely settlement of IPPs dues. However, investor concerns over higher CPI inflation for May, foreign outflows, and rupee instability weighed on trade, Mehanti added. KSE-30 shares index shed 0.11 percent or 21.99 points to close at 19,635.61 points.

Brokerage Arif Habib Limited in a note said the market traded in the positive zone for the most part of the session; however, profit booking in cement, banks, textile, and E&P (exploration and production) sector brought the index down.

Pakistan State Oil inched up on the expectation of release of funds, whereas steel sector performed on the possibility of reduction of duties in the upcoming budget, it said.

The brokerage said central bank’s amendment in its capital adequacy regulations by significantly lowering the applicable risk weight from 200 percent to 100 percent on banks/ DFIs’ investments in the units of REITs also triggered activities in the investment banking sector.

Maaz Mulla at JS Global Capital said the government was considering reducing taxes on new imported and locally assembled cars of up to 800cc engine capacity in the next budget.

Activity was witnessed in the steel sector where Amreli Steel gained 7.5 percent, Mughal Steel 5.0 percent, Ittefaq Foundry 4.6 percent, and International Industries strengthened by 2.8 percent, he said. Mulla said similarly pharmaceutical sector also rallied and among notable gainers were Ferozsons Laboratories that improved 7.5 percent, GSK 5.3 percent, and Searle Pakistan closed 1.3 percent higher.

Moving forward analysts expect the bullish trend to continue and recommend investors to accumulate cyclic and export-oriented stocks in case of any downside.

Wyeth Pakistan, up Rs198.49 to close at Rs2,845.15/share, and Nestle Pakistan up Rs102.51 to close at Rs5,688.84/share, were the top two gainers of the day.

On the other hand, Unilever Foods, down Rs199 to close at Rs16,300/share, and Millat Tractors, down Rs25.13 to end at Rs1,091.77/share, were the worst losers of Thursday’s session.

Worldcall Telecom remained the volume leader with a turnover of 134.99 million shares, followed by First National Equities with a trade of 48.14 million shares, and Invest Bank that posted a volume of 42.69 million shares.