Furqan Punjani, an analyst at Topline Securities, said that out of 19 listed cement companies, only 2 companies ie Kohat Cement and Lucky posted positive returns of 22 per cent and nine per cent, respectively.

"For a better comparison we have excluded Javedan Corporation as it has relinquished its cement operations," he said.

The worst performing stocks in the sector were Al-Abbas Cement followed by Bestway.

Turnaround in profitability amid higher sales in local arena, Kohat Cement stood as the best performer in the cement sector universe.

The scrip posted a double digit positive return of 22 per cent in 2011 YTD outperforming the benchmark KSE 100 by 28 per cent.

Similarly, Lucky, with 9 per cent return stood as the second best performing stock in cement, thus outperforming KSE-100 index by 15 per cent.

The cost efficient plant not only benefited from rising local cement prices (highest share in local market) but also remain stable in export markets despite weak global demand.

"Javedan Corporation also posted a positive return of 8 per cent during the said period but since the company has abandoned its cement operations we have not included it in our sector return calculation," he said.

He said apart from heavy weight Lucky Cement and turnaround story in Kohat Cement, entire cement sector posted negative returns.

Al-Abbas Cement with negative 73 per cent return stood as the worst performer.

Besides technical difficulties in plant, non materialisation of acquisition deal by Attock Cement remained the other major reason behind its huge underperformance.

Bestway cement posted negative return of 68 percent over its persistent under utilisation while FCCL posted negative return of 63 per cent amid delay in commercial production of its new 2 million tonne plant.

Moreover, with depressed market sentiments, DG Khan with huge investment portfolio posted negative return of 38 per cent.