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Stocks maintain winning streak

KARACHI — Despite city carnage and heavy death toll in Thursday's bomb blasts, Pakistani stocks maintained their winning streak amid optimism that the homecoming of Benazir Bhutto could restore sanity to the highly polarised political scenario.

The stock market appears to have ignored the negative fallout of the killings and maintained its winning streak on strong foreign and local buying hoping that the current bull-run will be sustained during the next week also.

The KSE 100-shares index added another 324 points to the previous total for the seventh week in a row and finished the weekend session at 14,787.55 points, as leading base shares did not look back and maintained their upward drive under the lead of oil, cement and banking shares. “I don't call it the market's spontaneous welcome to expected arrival of former prime minister Benazir after eight- year self exile tomorrow,” said a leading analyst but some “others linked it to prevailing enthusiasm in the city measured by the banners and hoarding on the city roads.” “The index level of 15,000 or beyond now appears to be not that elusive goal,” analyst Ahsan Mehanti said” the base shares,notably OGDC and MCB are under squeeze and for good reasons too.”

Incidentally, its journey beyond this level coincided with the resumption of hearing of petitions by the supreme court seeking ruling on the eligibility of President Musharraf to seek re-election for the second term from the existing assemblies.

However,the market's future trend is expected to be guided by the supreme court verdict on the petitions,which analysts believe,could go either-way being an important constitutional issue.

Both the shares having a considerable weightage in it are capable of taking the market along with they where they want it to. Massive buying in OGDC for the last couple of sessions is essentially based on the higher oil and gas production and in MCB, the support linked to GDR.

It finished the post-eid holiday session on a bullish note,up 126.39 points at 14,590.17 as compared to 14,463.78 at the last weekend,although well below the session's high of 14,614.34 on late profit-selling.

The opening after four eid-holidays was on the higher side as investors were not inclined to take a bearish view of the market,notably in the backdrop of euphoria created by the expected arrival of Benazir Bhutto tomorrow.

“The perception that her arrival could end the prevailing political uncertainty seem to be the chief motivating factor behind the massive buying on selected counters,” analyst Ashraf Zakaria said adding “foreign buyers were more active.”

Bulk of the support was confined to mostly risk-free shares and those having good dividend record as investors were not inclined to go beyond safe havens for good reasons too.

Siemens Pakistan, and Unilever Pakistan were leading among the gainers, up by Rs.29.00 and 90.00, while Losers were led by Pakistan Reinsurce CO, and Pakistan Engineerimg, off by Rs. 13.70 and 12.25.

Trading volume soared to a year's high at 439m shares as compared to 302m shares at the last weekend as gainers held a strong lead over the losers at 207 to 128,with 44 shares holding on to the last levels.