Last week the KSE100 lost 0.69 percent or 78 points to close at 11,296 points. The market seems as directionless as sometimes it gets where punters cannot decide where the market is headed, and nobody can fault them due to the judicial crisis in the country.

The month of March has been terrible for Pakistan. The lawyers’ countrywide protests against the government and the heroics of our national cricket team; it is in fact wonderful that our stock market is not as gloomy as it normally gets in such difficult situations.

There are many people who believe that because of the new margining regime, the market’s fall has been very controlled. In fact, the rise has been very controlled too. This is what higher margins do in a stock market; because speculators’ trading capacities become more limited, they are unable to carry out hugely leveraged trading. Having said so, there are more investors staying out of the market than others, as their majority is waiting for a better time to build portfolios. This is why even investors love speculators, because it is for them that every smart investor gets a fantastic opportunity to build portfolio and in anticipation of that, start building liquidity by getting out of "expensive" shares - those which are trading far above or close to fair values.

Our portfolio lost slightly over 1 percent, after booking bonus and cash dividends on its holdings last week. But even this 1 percent is not bad, considering the fact that our total investment in equities is at a low. We will buy some shares at last week’s closing prices.

We are taking our 300 shares in FFC to 500 shares (at last week’s closing price) because we cannot wait any longer. The speculators might want to take this bluechip to less than Rs.100 in which case we will redouble our stakes. Take that! For OGDC we will have 500 shares, buying another 200 at last week’s closing price because we believe that is too attractive for us to ignore.

We are liquidating our investments in Indus Motors, our favourite, because we think that the market will soon enable us to buy at better price. Same treatment we are giving to Pak Suzuki Motors, PSO, ICI and Azgard Nine. Please do not get misled; we are doing it only temporarily, and if speculators were not there, we would not have hoped to buy back these shares at more attractive levels. PNSC is going up defying all rules but we do not care.

Callmate’s December closing results have not yet been announced and the market waited too patiently it must be acknowledged, before it gave up.

There is a definite advantage our portfolio has over balanced mutual funds that cannot liquidate beyond a certain level and have to maintain certain minimum investments in equities.

Before we sign off, a word about stock and cash dividends. Each time a company goes ex-cash dividend, the price is marked down by the amount of dividend announced, even though it would be a while before the company will remit the dividend to its shareholders. Similarly, it is true for stock dividend. The number of shares outstanding for a stock dividend carrying company goes up only after free shares are received by the shareholders, but the stock market price is marked down on ex-bonus date.

OUR PORTFOLIO - LAST WEEK’S CLOSE

Symbol Last rate Shares Value Weekly Rise/fall

gain/loss in share

price

ABL 113.9 100 11,390 (180) (1.80)

ACBL 81 100 8,100 (3,800) (38.00)

AICL 193.6 0 - - 10.60

ANL 24.8 100 2,480 (10) (0.10)

BAFL 46.75 0 - - (13.25)

BOP 122.3 0 - - 3.30

CTTL 46 0 - - (1.85)

DGKC 87 100 8,700 (140) (1.40)

FFC 104.25 300 31,275 (2,025) (6.75)

HCAR 60 100 6,000 (95) (0.95)

HUBC 30.85 0 - - (0.65)

ICI 128.6 100 12,860 (390) (3.90)

INDU 248.5 100 24,850 (285) (2.85)

KAPCO 58 0 - - 0.90

LUCK 78.25 100 7,825 - 0.50

MCB 282 0 - - (26.50)

MLCF 18.5 0 - - (0.65)

NBP 237.8 0 - - (34.25)

NCL 38.5 0 - - (0.75)

NML 100 110 11,000 (248) (2.25)

OGDC 116.8 300 35,040 (255) (0.85)

PKGS 216 100 21,600 (695) (6.95)

PNSC 55 0 - - 1.00

POL 317.45 300 95,235 (1,995) (6.65)

PPL 244.5 100 24,450 (800) (8.00)

PSMC 526.05 100 52,605 (590) (5.90)

PSO 352.6 100 35,260 (1,805) (18.05)

PTC 46.25 0 - - (3.05)

SHEL 370 100 37,000 (1,000) (10.00)