Equities extend gains

KARACHI: A bullish trend continued on Pakistan Stock Exchange on Thursday due to aggressive buying in almost all sectors.

After a depressed opening, the market bounced back and closed on strong positive note with healthy gains as investors opted for value hunting in the main board.

The benchmark KSE-100 Index increased by 146.12 points or 0.35 percent and crossed 42,000 psychological level to close at 42,090.71 points. The index hit 42,176.02 points intraday high and 41,886.23 points intraday low.

Trading activity also improved as total daily volumes on ready counter increased to 325.716 million shares as compared to 230.561 million shares traded Wednesday. Total daily traded value on ready counter increased to Rs 7.208 billion against previous session’s Rs 6.249 billion.

BRIndex100 gained 24.12 points or 0.58 percent to close at 4,200.55 points with total daily turnover of 222.682 million shares.

BRIndex30 surged by 265.21 points or 1.73 percent to close at 15,629.08 points with total daily trading volumes of 144.956 million shares.

The market capitalization increased by Rs 19 billion to Rs 6.772 trillion. Out of total 350 active scrips, 216 closed in positive and 109 in negative while the value of 25 stocks remained unchanged.

Hascol Petroleum was the volume leader with 78.510 million shares and increased by Rs 1.00 to close at Rs 8.34 followed by WorldCall Telecom that gained Rs 0.08 to close at Rs 1.54 with 33.101 million shares. Ghani Global Holding closed at Rs 16.59, up Rs 0.87 with 17.512 million shares.

Goodluck Industries and Sapphire Fiber were the top gainers increasing by Rs 51.76 and Rs 47.71 respectively to close at Rs 741.91 and Rs 1,250.00 while Nestle Pakistan and Sapphire Textile were the top losers declining by Rs 120.00 and Rs 25.00 respectively to close at Rs 5,650.00 and Rs 1,125.00.

“A positive session was witnessed at the PSX continuing the favorable momentum from the previous close,” an analyst at Arif Habib Limited said.

Despite opening in the red territory the market bounced back and made an intraday high of 288.87 points as investors opted for value hunting in the main board. Healthy volumes were recorded across the board, on the contrary 3rd tier stocks remained volume leaders.

Sectors contributing to the performance include Technology and Communication (up 67.9 points), E&P (up 26.4 points), Commercial Banks (up 17.7 points), Cement (up 14.4 points) and Pharmaceuticals (up 8.7 points).

BR Automobile Assembler Index gained 35.94 points or 0.41 percent to close at 8,875.54 points with total turnover of 3.945 million shares.

BR Cement Index inched up by 28.34 points or 0.63 percent to close at 4,535.69 points with 31.896 million shares.

BR Commercial Banks Index added 16.57 points or 0.2 percent to close at 8,220.77 points with 20.380 million shares.

BR Power Generation and Distribution Index lost 26.92 points or 0.4 percent to close at 6,732.98 points with 11.366 million shares.

BR Oil and Gas Index closed at 3,788.24 points, up 23.01 points or 0.61 percent with 88.896 million shares.

BR Tech. & Comm. Index increased by 95.65 points or 2.21 percent to close at 4,419.20 points with 68.310 million shares.

An analyst at Topline Securities said that Pakistan equities closed positive where benchmark KSE-100 Index settled at 42,090 level, up 0.35 percent.

The day kicked off of on a positive note as investors cheered the trade deficit numbers which down by 26.59 percent during the first four months of the current fiscal year compared to the same period last year.

Major gainer’s in today’s trading session were TRG, MCB, UBL, POL and OGDC cumulatively added 120 points in KSE-100 Index.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2022