Muharram procession blast brings bears back to KSE

KARACHI - The benchmark KSE 100-index traded in the negative zone for most of the day with low participation on the back of bomb blast in the Muharram procession yesterday.
The KSE 100-index opened in red zone with a loss of 103.17 points and at the end of the day closed at 9410.66 with a loss of 11.57 points. KSE 30-index closed at 9883.55 with a loss of 19.58 points. All shares index closed at 6679.42 with a loss of 6.25 points. Trading activity was minimal as compared to the last trading session as the ready market volume stands at 50.399m as compared to last trading session 146.076m. Future market volume however stands at 0.818m shares as compared to 3.655m shares last trading session.
Market capitalisation stands over Rs 2.711tr, and total trade decreases to 36,096 as compared to last trading session 90,818, while 155 companies advanced, 147 declined and 11 remained unchanged. The highest volumes were witnessed in NCL at 6.159m closed at Rs 20.60 with a gain of Re 0.46 followed by PPTA at 5.216m closed at Rs 7.78 with a gain of Re 0.57, DGKC at 3.745m closed at Rs 30.75 with a gain of Re0.20.
OGDC had announced earlier that it will be farming out their stake in Sari South field in Sindh and ZIN filed in Balochistan, but this development would not have much impact on the share price.
Ahsan Mehanti, a market analyst, said that besides investors concerns over security lapse in the city, rise in international oil prices over $78 led to positive performance in oil sector despite limited activity of retail/ institutional investors ahead of year end closing.
The news also affected the market were fertilizer off-take robust as Urea off-take has risen by 13pc YoY to 5.5m tons during 11MCY09 despite higher prices compared to last year; and Urea sales figures released on Friday showed a surge of 17 percent MoM to 501K tons and DAP sales figures increased by 105 percent MoM to 282k tons.
The companies that have increase in their shares were Wyeth Pak being the top gainer with the increase of Rs 50.88/share to close at Rs 1300, Rafhan Maize gained Rs 48/share with the close of Rs 1500, Bata (Pak) secured Rs 46.59/share by closing at Rs 981, Siemens Pak with the gain of Rs 19.49 to close at Rs 1239.60. On the other hand the companies witnessed losses in their shares were Unilever Pakistan to loss Rs 31.44/share with the close of Rs 2303, Hinopak Motors lost Rs 3.45/share to close at Rs 196, Millat Tractors ltd with the loss of Rs 3.29/share closed at Rs 380, Al-Ghazi Tractors loses Rs 3.24/share by closing at Rs 238.30.
The trading session ended 1.25 hours earlier today as the law and order situation was expected to deteriorate in the afternoon.