Lahore stocks move up

Share prices moved up as an overwhelming institutional support triggered buying on the Lahore Stock Exchange on Thursday, propelling the market to a handsome gain of 75.46 points with some improvement in trade turnover. At the final count, the LSE-25 Index ended at 4,601.79 points compared with past closing at 4,526.33, posting a rise of 75.46 points.
Turnover slightly improved to 30.464 million shares from 29.997 million shares. Bulls got control of the driving seat from the very outset and never lost grip over it, helped by an overwhelming interest in some key chips, analysts said. Some brokers said it was a pre-election rally, which was being awaited since many days by the investors. The market could take a U-turn Friday since people probably prefer to off-load to avoid risks in the long weekend ahead. The market will also close on Monday - the day the nation goes to polls. The government has announced a public holiday on that day.
The market propelled up on the back of institutional support in key chips in oil and gas and banking and cement sectors, said Capital Vision Securities Limited equity research head Mirza Muhammad Irfan. He said fears by further political unrest ahead of the elections, individual investors off-loaded while institutions took to buying helping the market pick up today. He also said the National Bank today reached its upper cap limit.
The Habib Bank and other scrips announced their results but they were not much supportive to the market. Today, because of entry of the weak-holders a rising trend in the badla was also witnessed, he said, adding if it further rose the weak-holders would go for off-loading tomorrow. A majority of investors are yet not in mood of moving ahead and their strategy seems to remain on sidelines till the elections.
Out of a total of 129 traded scrips, 51 were up, 18 nose-dived while 60 were glued to their overnight positions. Major advancing stocks were Shell Gas LPG which improved by Rs 14.20, Packages Ltd Rs 13.00, National Bank Rs 11.55, Pakistan Oilfields Rs 5.60 and Allied Bank Rs 4.00. In negative zone, Al-Ghazi Tractors was down by Rs 7.5, BOC Pakistan Rs 6.95, Pakistan Refinery Rs 6.80, Attock Refinery Rs 4.90 and National Refinery Rs 3.00. NIB Bank and Bank Alfalah were the day's volume leaders with 4.073 million and 2.197 million shares.