Zubair Yaqoob
Karachi
Market traded in a narrow range on the last day of rollover week.
The benchmark index oscillated between -111pts and +218pts and closed the session -44pts. Pre-open session saw announcement of financial results of OGDC, LUCK and MLCF as key triggers for the Cement and E&P sectors. OGDC skipped the dividend payment, which disappointed some investors, but high oil prices still kept the interest alive. Similarly, MLCF and LUCK posted poorer than expected results, which reflected on the prices of both the stocks earlier in the session, however, stock prices recovered to some extent. By the close of session, Cement sector stocks closed red, as did Engineering, O&GMCs, Refineries and Fertilizer. HBL and UBL (among Banks) managed to post some price gains, whereas E&P sector also closed green. Cement sector realized trading volumes of 30M shares, followed by O&GMCs (16.9M) and Power (15.7M).
Among scrips, HASCOL led the table with 14.3M shares, followed by MLCF (14.2M) and KAPCO (11.9M). The Index closed at 32,806pts as against 32,850pts showing a decline of 44pts (-0.1% DoD). Sectors contributing to the performance include E&P (+29pts), Power (+20pts), Technology (+12pts).
