No let-up in buying spree on KSE

Buying spree continued on the third consecutive day and the last session of Ramazan remained bullish with the benchmark KSE-100 index breaching 11,500 points psychological level. The KSE-100 share index gained 166.97 points to close at 11566.80 points level.
Cumulatively, the index has gained approximately 1260 points during Ramazan and 657 points during the last three sessions. On the other hand, the KSE-30 share index gained 65.58 points and closed at 14020.56 points.
The market opened on a strong positive note and following the last two session''s bullish trend, the market buoyed right from the beginning with the KSE-100 index gradually strengthening itself to mark 11594.17 points intra-day high.
However, the volumes in ready market were lower at 235.524 million shares as compared to 260.487 million shares traded a day earlier. The overall market capitalisation increased by Rs 43 billion to Rs 3.185 trillion.
The broader market was evenly balanced with 145 scrips closed in positive column and 150 scrips closed in negative column, while the value of 37 scrips remained unchanged out of total 332 scrips traded on Thursday.
OGDCL was the star performer for the third consecutive day as the scrip closed limit up and remained the overall volume leader with 55 million shares. Asad Abdul Razzak, an analyst at Live Securities, said the OGDCL contributed 127 points to the total index''s surge. The PPL also posted a handsome gain at 2.5 percent to close at Rs 270.05, while profit-taking was witnessed in POL as the scrip closed 2.5 percent lower from its intra-day high.
On the other hand, banking scrips depicted a mixed trend as NBP and MCB gained 2.4 percent and 0.5 percent, respectively, while Bank Alfalah, BoP and Faysal Bank posted 2.1 percent, 0.8 percent and 2.2 percent declines to close at Rs 48.25, Rs 95.75 and Rs 66.65, respectively.
The profit-taking was also witnessed in FFBL and Engro Chemicals as both scrips closed 1.9 percent and 3.2 percent lower respectively from their intra-day highs. In the cement sector, DG Khan Cement was the only notable scrip that closed in the green though the gain was not significant.
Ahsan Mehanti, CEO of Shehzad Chamdia Securities, said that foreign interest in the Pakistan''s equity market invited the investors to invest specially in E&P and banking sectors. The government''s permission to OGDCL for allowing starting drilling in Balochistan was another reason, which attract the investors.