DAILY STOCK MARKET REPORT: 18th AUGUST,2011

Stock

Karachi Stocks Up 36.20 Points:
KARACHI, Aug 17: At close of trading, the KSE-100 index was at 11269.95, up 36.20 points.

August 17, 2011

5 TOP SCRIPTS GAINERS  AND LOOSERS

UniLever Pak	Rs 39.31	Unilever Foods	Rs (39.04)
National Refinery	Rs 7.42	Millat Tractors	Rs (25.63)
Shell Pakistan	Rs 8.08	Nestle Pakistan	Rs (18.44)
Attock Refinery	Rs 5.07	Atlas Honda Ltd	Rs (4.32)
New Jubilee Ins	Rs 2.65	Ismail Industrial	Rs (3.73)

KSE 30 – Shares Index	Previous 10,749.86, Wednesday’s 10,770.21, plus 20.35
KSE 100 – Shares Index	Previous 11,233.75, Wednesday’s 11,269.95, plus 36.20
MARKET CAPITALIZATION	Previous rs.2,991.471bn, Wednesday’s 3,000.192bn, plus 8.721bn
VOLUME LEADERS	Fatima Fertiliser 7.763m, Pakgen Power 4.325m, Lotte Pakistan 3.115m,Arif Habib Corpn 2.508m, Pace Pakistan 2.405m shares.
TOTAL VOLUME	46.330m shares
TOTAL	TONE: mixed, total listed 638, actives 319, inactives 319, plus 109, minus 116,unchanged 94

Stocks extend overnight gains

KARACHI, Aug 17: The share market on Wednesday passed through another mixed trading session as investors indulged in alternate bouts of buying and selling amid an expanded turnover figure.
But the perception that hefty increase in the profit margins of oil marketing companies could give the needed boost to the ailing share market seemed to have no relevance to the prevailing market trend, said analyst Ahsan Mehanti.
The situation on the ground was that barring Attock and National refineries which showed smart gains on reports of higher earnings, others notably PSO and Shell Pakistan, the major beneficiaries of the hike in margins, traded modestly eroding the initial gains, he added.
However, it was satisfying to note that the KSE 100-share index maintained its upward drive on the strength of some leading base shares and was quoted further higher by 36.20 points at 11,269.95, but well below its session’s high of 11,301.69.
Attock and National refineries were quoted higher by Rs5.07 and Rs7.42 followed by Pakistan Oilfields and modest gains in PSO and Shell Pakistan were the highlights of the session. But continued weakness of Engro Corporation did have a negative impact on the underlying sentiment.
Analyst Samar Iqbal said the market may not be poised for a big turnaround at this stage in the backdrop of higher earning reports by the oil sector but it goes to its credit that it is behaving credibly well in not very congenial environment both on the political and financial front.
Prominent gainers were again led by Unilever Pakistan and National Refinery, up by Rs39.31 and Rs7.42, while among the top losers Unilever Foods and Millat Tractors fell by Rs39.04 and Rs25.63.
The traded volume showed sharp increase and rose to 46.330m shares from the previous 27m shares but losers again maintained a slight edge over gainers at 116 to 109, with 94 shares holding on to the last levels.
The active list was topped by Fatima Fertiliser, up Re1 at Rs16.32 on 8m shares followed by Pakgen Power, higher by Rs1.01 at Rs21.38 on 4m shares, Lotte Pakistan, firm by 44 paisa at Rs11.11 on 3m shares, Arif Habib Corporation, lower by 34 paisa at Rs24.79 on 3m shares, Pace Pakistan, steady by 25 paisa at Rs2.15 also on 3m shares, Attock Refinery, up Rs5.07 at Rs119.86 on 2m shares and National Bank, firm by 18 paisa at Rs45.75 on 2m shares.
They were followed by Byco Petroleum, up 23 paisa at Rs7.82 on 2m shares, Engro Corporation, off Rs2.94 at Rs123.84 on 1.468m shares and JS & Co, lower eight paisa at Rs5.81 on 1.447m shares.
FUTURE CONTRACTS: Attock Refinery led the list of actives on strong support and was quoted higher by Rs4.81 at Rs120.04 on 0.816m shares followed by Engro Corporation, off Rs3.02 at Rs124.29 on 0.812m shares and Pakistan Oilfields, up Rs1.24 at Rs350.58 on 0.363m shares.
They were followed by National Bank, steady 10 paisa at Rs45.93 on 0.330m shares followed by Fauji Fertiliser Bin Qasim, easy five paisa at Rs47.83 on 0.322m shares.
DEFAULTER COMPANIES: The trading activity on this counter was relatively slow but the on-balance closing was mixed.
Japan Power again led the list of actives, easy by five paisa at Rs1.01 on 64,059 shares followed by Genertech Power, off 22 paisa at Rs0.36 on 10,003 shares and Ravi Textiles, lower two paisa at Rs0.88 on 8,647 shares.
All others were fractionally traded amid light turnover, mostly on the lower side.

MSCI keeps stock weightage at 3.98pc

KARACHI, Aug 17: The MSCI Barra, a leading provider of worldwide stock indices, announced the results of its August 2011 review on Wednesday, maintaining a status quo on Pakistan’s stock weight in the Frontier Markets at 3.98 per cent.
In the last review in May, country’s stock weightage was slightly lowered from 4.09 per cent, based on ruling prices at the time.
The rating agencies and indices providers have assumed greater significance after the Standard & Poor’s downgrade of US debt that caused furor in the world financial markets.
Investors have started to give more respect and look closely at an announcement, however, innocent that comes out of the offices of such agencies and so the Fitch maintaining US AAA credit ratings for US a day ago, poured some water on the fire fuelled by the S&P downgrade.
Mohammad Sohail, CEO at Topline Securities, said: “MSCI has already decided to keep Pakistan in Frontier Markets (FM) for two more years,” which was why, he said, the quarterly review was not expected to spring a surprise. Other analysts also said that the probability of Pakistan being put up for review for upgrade back to the Emerging Markets (EM), from where it was thrown out after the imposition of infamous “floor” on stock trading in winter of 2008, was low.
Imtiaz Gadar, at KASB Securities who tracks the MSCI indices stated that the next quarterly review by the agency would be in November.
He said that major changes were not expected to transpire for Pakistan.
“The next crucial announcement for Pakistan should be December 2011″, he observed and identified the reasons for its importance: Potential sharing of investor feedback.
“Recall that MSCI had invited investor feedback on Pakistan’s case for upgrade to Emerging Markets during the Annual Classification Review in June 2011,” said Gadar.
Moreover, in the Annual Classification Review, the decision regarding upgrade of Qatar and UAE to MSCI Emerging Markets was deferred for six months to Dec 2011. The additional review period was allocated to allow more time to the regulators and stock exchanges to address remaining concerns raised by international institutional investors.
From Pakistan’s perspective, the upgrade of those two markets (Qatar with weightage of 13 per cent in MSCI Frontier markets and UAE 9.3 per cent) should lead to one per cent weight gains in MSCI FM to five per cent.
The KASB analyst said that in case a decision was made to upgrade Qatar and UAE in December, the timeline for implementation would, however, remain drawn out, with Nov 12 cited as the earliest possible date for implementation.
UAE and Qatar have been under review for an upgrade to EMs since 2008.
An interesting chart presents the weight age of countries on the MSCI FM.
Kuwait leads with 28.4 per cent followed by Qatar 12.6 per cent; UAE 9.3 per cent; Argentina 7.6 per cent; Nigeria 6.6 per cent; Bangladesh 4.9 per cent and finally Pakistan on the seventh place with weightage of 4 per cent.
Bangladesh, which carried weight of 3.7 per cent in the last review, has taken one step ahead of Pakistan.
But if that is depressing enough, let the investors take heart and be comforted by the knowledge that as many as 18 countries stand under Pakistan, including Sri Lanka (2.4 per cent).
The Sri Lanka’s main market—Colombo—had stood out as one of the best performing regional market in the previous years.

Mohammed Saleem Mansoori