LSE turns bullish on news of judges restoration

The restoration of deposed judges, including the Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, in consequence of the lawyers movement, supported by the political parties and members of the civil society, changed the Lahore stock market sentiment to positive and pushed up the LSE-25 index by 13 percent during the week ending on March 21, 2009.
The LSE-25 index moved up from 1702.84 to 1924.50, depicting a gain of 221.66 points, while the volume increased by 296 percent to 150.525 million shares against 38.033 million shares of previous week.
On Monday, the market, after a very long time, witnessed a vertical rise and recorded highest gain of 5.91 percent in a single day trading. The index rose by 100.71 points with turnover of 27.249 million shares. This resulted in capping on their upper side most blue chips shares, particularly in the banking, oil and fertiliser sectors.
On Tuesday, buying spree continued and the index rose by 33.27 points. Despite profit taking, the market managed to close in the green zone. The improved to 27.249 million shares due to aggressive buying in oil, banking and fertiliser sectors shares including PSO, Pak Oilfields, Attock Refinery, Shell Pak, Engro Chemical, Fauji Fertiliser, Habib Bank, MCB Bank, and Adamjee Insurance.
On Wednesday, positive sentiment persisted which took the market up by 60.56 points with share volume at 32.835 million shares. Oil sector shares like PSO, Pak Oilfields and PPL and banking sector companies including MCB Bank, Habib Bank, National Bank, NIB Bank, Bank of Punjab, Bank Alfalah played pivotal role in keeping the market in green zone.
On Thursday, the market crossed the 1900 points mark and sustained well above at 1976.33 points, with 78.95 points gain and trading of 35.740 million shares. Not only the institutions but also the retail investors made fresh entries in fundamentally strong shares. Profit taking seen during the day could not make visible upset. Analysts attributed market gains to National Bank financial results and termed the payout as more than the investors expectations.
On Friday, market sentiment turned negative and profit taking by local investors and portfolio sale dragged the market into red zone. The market recorded a loss of 51.83 points while volume fell to 25.479 million shares.