KSE consolidates after 5-day bullish streak

After five successive days of massive bullish trade, Pakistan's Karachi Stock Exchange (KSE) consolidated in the sixth straight day of gains amid lower investors' participation but the key index continued its travel towards the psychological 27,000-mark. The benchmark KSE 100-Index gained 0.19 percent or 49.70 points to 26,892.23 points Friday as against 26,842.53 points Thursday. During the week ending on March 7, the KSE 100-Index jumped by 1,108.95 points with all the five trading sessions recording bullish trade. The KSE All Share Index increased 0.35 percent or 69.58 points to 19,977.65 points, the KSE 30-Index inched up by 0.06 percent or 12.22 points to 19,546.91 points, whereas the KMI 30-Index fell by 0.14 percent or 63.59 points to 44,903.73 points. During Friday's trading session, the key index hit an intraday high of 26,979.01 points as against an intraday low of 26,800.78 points. Overall consolidation was seen in the market where oil marketing companies remained in limelight with Shell closing 5 percent up and Pakistan State Oil finishing up by 2 percent. Some profit-taking was seen in oil exploration companies and cement stocks but small-cap stocks stayed in demand with Maple Leaf leading the top volume getters. Market volumes declined by 59.727 million shares to 203.346 million shares Friday as against 263.073 million shares Thursday, the capitalization improved by 21.955 billion rupees (209.104 million U.S. dollars) to 6.493 trillion rupees (61.845 billion U.S. dollars), whereas trading value shrank by 2.383 billion rupees (22. 701 million U.S. dollars) to 9.601 billion rupees (91.439 million U.S. dollars). During the week, market recorded total volumes of 1.258 billion shares at average daily turnovers of 251.626 million shares. Among 364 active scrips Friday, prices of 173 issues turned red, 168 finished green whereas values of 23 other companies stayed unchanged. Maple Leaf Cement, TRG Pakistan Limited and Jahangir Siddiqui Company Limited were the top traded companies with turnovers of 25. 663 million shares, 19.172 million shares and 10.084 million shares, respectively. Bata Pakistan was the top price gainer with increment of 100 rupees (95.23 U.S. cents) to close at 3,000 rupees (28.57 U.S. dollars) while Indus Dyeing led major losers with decrement of 57. 22 rupees (54.49 U.S. cents) to finish at 1,087.23 rupees (10.35 U. S. dollars).