The Karachi stock market witnessed a bullish trading session Tuesday as Moody’s investor service revised the ratings of NBP, HBL, UBL, MCB and Pakistan’s sovereign debt to stable, which boosted investor confidence and they went for buying activities. The Karachi Stock Exchange (KSE) 100-share index gained 62.55 points or 0.79 percent to close at 7,995.10 points as compared to the previous session’s 7,932.55 points. The KSE 30-share index closed at 8,474.25 points with an increase of 65.32 points. The KMI 30 index closed at 11,873.31 points with a surge of 63.07 points. Analysts said the market remained buoyant since the start of the trading activities the trend continued till the closing. Cement and bank stocks remained in the limelight during the session. The market turnover went down by 22.55 percent and traded 106.86 million shares as compared with previous session’s 137.99 million shares. The overall market capitalisation was up by 0.68 percent to close at Rs 2.354 trillion as agai...

State Bank of Pakistan has slashed the discount rate by 100 basis points, report said on Saturday. At a press conference here Saturday, Governor SBP Syed Saleem Raza announced the monetary policy. He announced that the SBP has decided to slash the discount rate by 100 basis points. “The SBP has cut the discount rate by one percentage points from the current 14 per cent,” Raza said. The governor said GDP ratio reaches 2.1 pc. He said foreign exchange reserves improved sharply and stood at $9.1 billion. The SBP has cut the discount rate by one percentage points from the current 14 per cent. It had cut the rate by one percentage point in April this year from 15 to 14 per cent. The central bank also changed the interest rate mechanism to bring transparency in Repurchase Offered (repo) rate as well as reverse repo rate as recommended by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

The KSE 100-index could muster nominal 14 points on Wednesday as investors preferred booking profit for the second consecutive day while benchmark closed the day at 8,058 points. The KSE sustained a decent surge during the session mainly due to positive activity in main board banking stocks, confirmation of MCB-RBS transaction and whispers of consistency in earnings likely to be announced by NBP. Besides the banking stocks, cement, textile and oil & gas exploration stocks witnessed stock swapping, wherein the stocks trading at higher multiples were switched with those trading at comparatively low multiples, thus having a neutral to positive impact on the index, besides providing trading opportunities to the market men as reflected by decent turnover. “Rise in dollar reserve of the country due to release of third tranche by IMF did allow the local currency to find stability. Besides actions being undertaken by the authorities to reduce creation of artificial demand of dollar is like...

By Ansar Abbasi ISLAMABAD: The Security and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP), which is sitting on an inquiry report over the alleged securities fraud of the corporate bigwigs, has sought an amendment in the SECP Act of 1997 in order to be endowed with the power of plea bargaining apparently to help the corporate bigwigs in question. SECP Chairman Salman Ali Shaikh when contacted denied that the purpose of the amendments sought is to cover up a mega fraud as concluded by the SECP’s report submitted early this year. There was no action taken by the SECP against the companies involved in the stock exchange fraud. Sources claim that the SECP, which has been delaying and concealing the alleged corruption of the corporate bigwigs so far, wants the SECP Act to be amended to authorise the Commission to indulge in plea bargaining, which in this case is particularly motivated by the desire to conceal the criminal conduct of some bigwigs and let them go scot-free. “If the SECP starts to ai...

The Board of Directors of the Karachi Stock Exchange (KSE) has cancelled the membership of three suspended brokers on permanent basis at the expiry of the deadline given to them to remove complaints against them. The membership of three brokerage houses — Capital One Equities Limited, Clicktrade Limited and Eastern Capital Limited, is cancelled with immediate effect, the KSE notified on Thursday. The notification added, “The above mentioned brokers have failed to pay and address their clients/investors’ legitimate claims. They also failed to honour arbitration award and did not fulfil their financial obligation towards the Exchange.” Earlier on June 26, SECP had suspended the membership of five brokerage houses. The two other were Prudential Securities and MKA Securities

Pakistani stocks ended slightly firmer on Wednesday, buoyed by more financial help from the IMF, but slipped from the day’s highs as investors sold shares of Pakistan State Oil (PSO.KA) and Hub Power Co Ltd (HPWR.KA) after their annual results. The Karachi Stock Exchange’s (KSE) benchmark 100-share index ended 0.17 percent, or 13.96 points, higher at 8058.46 points on turnover of 157 million shares. It set an intra-day high of 8,135.36 points. The KSE-index has now gained 37.4 percent this year after losing 58.3 percent in 2008. “The market after trading up for most of the day ended almost flat after the results from PSO and HUBCO failed to boost confidence,” said Asad Iqbal, managing director at Ismail Iqbal Securities Ltd. Shares were boosted early by MCB Bank’s acquisition of Royal Bank of Scotland’s (RBS.L) Pakistan operations for around $87 million and by news that Pakistan had received a further $1.2 billion from the International Monetary Fund as part of an emergency loan facili...

Board of Directors of the MCB Bank has approved the proposed acquisition of Royal Bank of Scotland’s local commercial and retail operations. The expected transaction is subject to signing of the share purchase agreement, SBP approval and other customary regulatory approval/requirements. MCB revealed this in a notice sent to Karachi Stock Exchange (KSE) on Monday. MCB further said the Board of Directors of MCB met on August 08, 2009 at MCB premises for announcing bank’s first half year financial results for 2009 and to consider proposed purchase of RBS, Pakistan (formerly ABN AMRO Bank). The top-level management of MCB has consented to participate in a bidding process, which is expected to be held soon for acquiring the stake of RBS, Pakistan by MCB Bank. According to a notice, the concerned parties are set to sign share purchase agreement soon which is being financially advised by Bank of America, Merrill Lynch and KASB Bank Limited on the proposed transaction. Some news reports have c...