Karachi Stock turns bearish amid profit-selling

Pakistan's Karachi Stock Exchange (KSE) recorded bearish trading activities on Thursday as investors resorted to book profits at higher levels after hefty gains of previous day which lifted the turnovers to a nine-month high. The benchmark KSE 100-Index shed 0.37 percent or 107.81 points to 29,350.34 points Thursday as against 29,458.15 points posted Wednesday. The KSE All Share Index fell by 0.28 percent or 60.68 points to 21,969.65 points, the KSE 30-Index declined by 0.37 percent or 76. 45 points to 20,493.17 points, whereas the KMI 30-Index slumped by 0.74 percent or 348.99 points to 46,701.96 points. During Thursday's trading session, the key index hit an intraday high of 29,672.26 points as against an intraday low of 29, 066.09 points. In spite of receiving 2 billion U.S. dollars on account of Eurobond sale, local bourse witnessed some profit-taking amid disappointing March quarter results and Wednesday's historic high. Traded value in rupee-term also increased by 21 percent to 17 billion rupees last seen in July 2013. Index heavyweight oil and cement sectors witnessed selling pressure where Pakistan Oilfields Limited, Attock Petroleum Limited and National Refineries Limited announced their below- expectation results Thursday. However, Attock Refineries Limited' s earnings remained better than market consensus. Banking stocks remained on investors'radar as scrips like United Bank Limited, MCB Bank, Askari Bank Limited and Faysal Bank Limited remained in the limelight. Askari Bank also announced better-than-expected March quarter result and gained 4 percent at close. Market volumes surged by 104.69 million shares to 496.323 million shares, capitalization reduced by 19.939 billion rupees ( 199.395 million U.S. dollars) to 7.062 trillion rupees (70.629 billion U.S. dollars), whereas trading value gained 2.975 billion rupees (29.751 million U.S. dollars) to 17.036 billion rupees (170. 366 million U.S. dollars). K-Electric Limited, NIB Bank Limited and Faysal Bank Limited were the top traded companies with turnovers of 99.005 million shares, 48.607 million shares and 28.085 million shares, respectively. Unilever Foods XD was the top price gainer with increment of 303.03 rupees (3.03 U.S. dollars) to 8,989.89 rupees (89.90 U.S. dollars) while Rafhan Maize led the major losers with decrement of 451.50 rupees (4.52 U.S. dollars) to 10,500 rupees (105 U.S. dollars).