Sound gains on KSE

The investors' expectations over cut in interest rate by the central bank and healthy corporate results, invited fresh buying at the share market and the benchmark KSE-100 index surged by 107.53 points to close at 7,902.48 points level on Monday. The market opened on a positive note and the index hit 7,977.17 points intra-day high level, up by 182.22 points.
However, offloading mainly by foreign investors minimised the intra-day gains. Trading volumes at the ready counter stood at 252.880 million shares as compared to 259.364 million shares traded on Friday. The overall market capitalisation increased by Rs 32 billion to Rs 2.355 trillion. The foreign investors withdrew another $5.490 million from the country's equity market.
Out of the total 352 active scrips, 200 closed in the positive and 134 in the negative while the value of 18 scrips remained unchanged. Jahangir Siddiqui Co was the volume leader with 21.595 million shares. However, it lost Rs 1.35 to close at Rs 42.38. The banking sector led the rally as NIB Bank, NBP, Bank Al Falah and Bank of Punjab surged by Re. 0.46, Rs 1.27, Re. 1.00 and Re. 1.00 to close at Rs 6.69, Rs 85.53, Rs 14.77 and Rs 14.78 with 17.845 million shares, 12.170 million shares, 9.857 million shares and 9.284 million shares respectively.
WorldCall Telecom gained Re. 0.15 to close at Rs 3.99 with 11.750 million shares. Pak PTA increased by Re. 0.31 to close at Rs 3.12 with 10.791 million shares. Arif Habib Sec surged by Re. 0.57 to close at Rs 33.40 with 9.880 million shares. Fresh buying was also witnessed in the cement sector, as Lucky Cement and DG Khan Cement increased by Rs 1.21 and Re. 0.24 to close at Rs 56.04 and Rs 28.96 with 8.716 million shares and 7.599 million shares respectively.
Unilever Pak and Millat Tractors were the highest gainers and gained Rs 27.50 and Rs 10.64 to close at Rs 1850.00 and Rs 236.89 respectively while Bata (Pak) and Siemens Pak were the worst losers and lost Rs 25.73 and Rs 24.00 to close at Rs 830.00 and Rs 726.00 respectively.
Muhammad Imran, Head of Research at Arif Habib Limited, said that the market witnessed healthy gains on the back of investors' strong interest due to their expectations over a cut in interest rates by the central bank in its monetary policy. Above than expectations results mainly by some banking strong sector stocks, also invited fresh buying in the banking sector, which led the rally on Monday. He said that overall sentiments were positive. However, some profit taking in a few select stocks was also witnessed, which minimised the intra-day gains.