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RECORDER REPORT

KARACHI: History making records set on the Karachi Stock Exchange on Wednesday reverberated on Thursday also when trading had to be terminated due to excessive load in the second session after the market had recorded a gain of 10.75 points in the morning session.

The KSE on Wednesday recorded the highest turnover of 314.769 million in its history. But the excessive load on the Karachi Automated Trading System (KATS) at the exchange caused some technical problem in the database server due to which second session of the KATS could not be held on Thursday.

However, the exchange management has identified the problem and normal trading would commence from Friday.

A trader said that though the exchange had been at par with the international stock markets since the installation of the KATS computer glitches had occurred and the trading had been suspended several times. Earlier, "we were making records that the trading has been suspended nine times, but now it is unaccountable."

While trading was suspended for most of the time, sentiment was running high among the investors. The current bullish rally encouraged several retail investors to put their money in the local stocks. However, several dealers have sent caution signals to their clients to wait for a suitable time to make fresh investment, because several scrips, especially in fuel and energy sector, have reached their optimum level and now have less room for improvement.

The market is expected to show some more rises on the back of some positive reports. An IMF mission is coming to Pakistan by the end of this week, PSO would soon announce its results for the year 1998-99 and gas regulatory authority has been established to speed up the privatisation of two gas companies.

Above all, the government would soon meet the representatives of Goldman Sachs, financial advisors to the Pakistan Telecommunication Company. The government would sell its stake between 15 to 26 percent which might yield nearly $1.0 billion. This might gear up some more buying in the coming session, and consolidate the gains made by the pivotals and the KSE-100 index.

The KSE-100 index registered an increase of 10.75 points or 0.68 percent to 1581.60 from 1570.85 of Wednesday. The volume moved up to 147.348 million shares from 314.769 million shares of Wednesday. The market capitalisation finished at Rs 406.299 billion from Rs 403.711 billion of Thursday.

PTCL on a trading of 40.061 million shares denoted an improvement of 55 paisa to Rs 25.15, Hub Power on a business of 39.654 million shares closed at Rs 24.00, showing an increase of 35 paisa, Sui Northern Gas on a turnover of 57.230 million shares closed at Rs 18.15, showing a fall of 15 paisa, PSO saw a fall of Rs 1.00 to Rs 222.90 on total deals of 5.426 million shares, and ICI on a volume of 2.844 million shares recorded a decline of five paisa to Rs 11.35.