Blue chips lead rally on PSX: BRIndex100 retreats

Pakistan Stock Exchange Wednesday witnessed a bullish trend on the back of healthy buying in almost all sectors.

BRIndex100 gained 58.69 points or 1.4 percent to close at 4,236.79 points. BRIndex100 touched intraday high of 4,243.47 and intraday low of 4,160.09 points. Volumes stood at 328.502 million shares.

BRIndex30 increased by 339.39 points or 1.59 percent to close at 21,748.20 points with a turnover of 210.856 million shares.

The KSE-100 Index surged by 481.79 points or 1.21 percent to close at 40,270.52 points. Daily trading volumes stood at 393.150 million shares as compared to 448.876 million shares traded Tuesday.

The market capitalization increased by Rs 83 billion to Rs 7.665 trillion. Out of total 401 active scrips, 294 closed in positive, only 87 in negative while the value of 20 stocks remained unchanged.

Unity Foods was the volume leader with 26.851 million shares. It gained Re 0.18 to close at Rs 13.06 followed by Lotte Chemical that inched up by Re 0.42 to close at Rs 15.35 with 17.666 million shares. Bata Pak and Rafhan Maize were the top gainers with Rs 101.02 and Rs 100.00, respectively to close at Rs 2,149.49 and Rs 7,000.00. Island Textile and Nestle Pakistan were the top losers with Rs 73.80 and Rs 64.50, respectively to close at Rs 1,412.00 and Rs 6,750.00.

BR Automobile Assembler Index increased by 102.32 points or 1.59 percent to close at 6,522.00 points with total turnover of 3.368 million shares.

BR Cement Index surged by 106.9 points or 2.98 percent to close at 3,697.72 points with 53.487 million shares.

BR Commercial Banks Index gained 111.18 points or 1.18 percent to close at 9,552.27 points with 31.785 million shares.

BR Power Generation and Distribution Index inched up by 46.4 points or 0.83 percent to close at 5,604.43 points with 31.100 million shares.

BR Oil and Gas Index closed at 4,395.64 points, up 47.89 points or 1.1 percent with 19.316 million shares.

BR Tech. & Comm. Index increased by 28.03 points or 2.89 percent to close at 999.05 points with 29.734 million shares.

An analyst at Arif Habib Limited said that the market took a dip on Wednesday as well, following Tuesday's slide of 400 points, and fell by 129 points during the session. The KSE-100 Index, however, came back strongly and went up 518 points by close of session. The market closed plus 482 points.

Buying activity was seen in Cement, Autos, Steel and Banking sectors. During the session, CPI numbers were released as well, which were higher than street consensus, but couldn't dent the buying activity much. Cement sector led the volumes with 62.8 million shares, followed by Chemical (41.9 million shares) and Banks (31.8 million shares).

Sectors contributing to the performance include Banks (up 124 points), Cement (up 69 points), O&GMCs (up 53 points), E&P (up 28 points) and Pharmaceuticals (up 27 points).

Stocks that contributed positively include PSO (up 41 points), LUCK (up 34 points), MCB (up 32 points), UBL (up 31 points) and DGKC (up 17 points). Stocks that contributed negatively include ENGRO (down 18 points), KEL (down 4 points), NATF (down 4 points), NESTLE (down 3 points) and HASCOL (down 2 points).