Stocks hold the fort on rupee, economic data

Stocks on Tuesday continued to tail the rising rupee amid surging global crude oil prices that mostly favoured local energy shares, traders said, while trade deficit numbers also strengthened the general sentiment.

Pakistan Stock Exchange's (PSX) benchmark KSE-100 Shares Index closed higher by 138.73 points or 0.34 percent to 41,350.43 after swinging between 41,587.61 and 41,211.70 points levels.

Analyst Ahsan Mehanti at Arif Habib Corp said stocks ended positive, led by scrips across the board as investors weighed a bull-run in world crude oil markets, strong rupee recovery, and higher payouts in the energy sector.

“Speculations over exit from the FATF grey list in its October 17 meeting, and upbeat trade deficit numbers gave stocks a leg up,” Mehanti added.

The KSE-30 index also gained 67.50 points or 0.44 percent to 15,477.51 points.

Traded shares surged by 408 million to 593.437 million from 185.369 million shares. The trading value, however, dropped to Rs9.350 billion from Rs9.382 billion. The market capital expanded to Rs6.784 trillion from Rs6.775 trillion. Out of 352 companies active in the session, 161 rose, 165 fell, and 26 maintained the status quo.

Topline Securities said the day kicked off on a positive note where initial gains were led by HUBC as the stocks continued Monday’s momentum fueled by an exceptional dividend announcement of Rs15.5/share by the power company.

Furthermore, investors’ interest was witnessed in TRG and LUCK that led the stocks to cumulatively add 82 points to the index.

Pakistan Services was the best performer of the session, up Rs56.50 to Rs1,080 per share, followed by Sapphire Fiber, which jumped Rs56 to Rs1,289 per share.

Premium Textile led the losers by giving up Rs59.99 to end at Rs740 per share, followed by Blessed Textile, down Rs34.99 to Rs465 per share.

Arif Habib Ltd, in a post-session report, said stocks cheered a fall in the current account deficit.

Sectors contributing to the performance include Technology (+73.9.2pts), Power (+53.6pts), Cement (+47.5pts), Misc. (+28.3pts) and Fertilizer (+20.2pts).

WorldCall Telecom (WTL) notified the exchange regarding their progress over the fibre-to-home programme as the company had embarked on the second phase and to finance it the Worldcall Services Limited (WSL) was concluding arrangements that would open access to quality capital markets for the company outside Pakistan. WSL has selected (NASDAQ) for its listing.

WorldCall Telecom was the volume leader with 346.036 million shares. It rose by 52 paisas to Rs1.63 per share. It was followed by Flying Cement with 30.372 million shares. The stock closed higher by Re1.0 to Rs8.19 per share.

Other major traded stocks included K-Electric Ltd, G3 Technologies, TPL Properties, TRG Pakistan Ltd, Hub Power Co, Cnergyico PK, Telecard Limited, and Unity Foods Ltd.

Shares’ turnover in the future contracts increased to 126.271 million shares from 58.008 million shares.

JS Research in a note said: "Going forward, we recommend investors to adopt a buy-on-dips strategy in Banking, Fertilizers and Cement sectors".