Shares gain little ahead of budget

Shares at Karachi Stock Exchange (KSE) ended with limited gains on Thursday as investors' participation remained low ahead of the budget for the fiscal year 2009-10.
The benchmark KSE 100-Index gained 44 points to close at 7,091 points.
"Rise in foreign remittances and declining trend of inflation supported the economic end for the local investors," Hasnain Asghar Ali of Aziz Fidahusein & Co told The Financial Daily.
The market started with a little gain of 16 points and reduced activity of the investors. Positive activities were witnessed almost throughout the day with limited gains. At about 12:41pm, the index touched an intra-day high of 7,125 points (+ve 78 points). Buying was mainly in the banking sector.
However, there was some profit booking at higher levels sending the index into negative zone for a few minutes where it touched its lowest level of the day - 7,035 points (-ve 11 points) - but support at lower levels called back the green numbers and then market remained in the positive territory till the closing bells to end with little gains.
Despite positive closing, foreigners were the net sellers.
According to National Clearing Company of Pakistan Limited (NCCPL), net foreign selling of $1.65 million was witnessed during the day.
Meanwhile, KSE 30-Index jumped by 75 points to close at 7,564 points and KSE all-share index increased by 29 points to close at 5,084 points.
Talking to TFD, Mohammad Sohail of Topline Securities said it was another dull day ahead of the federal budget. However, he expressed his optimism that market is likely to post a small rally after the budget in case there are no direct taxes on share trading.
Volumes further reduced as 114 million shares traded during the day which is 27 million shares less as compared to a turnover of around 141 million shares a day earlier.
Out of total 311 active issues, 151 advanced and 142 declined while 18 issues remained unchanged.