Oil sector leads PSX rally: BRIndex100 rebounds

Improving oil prices in the international market invited healthy buying in E&P and OMC sectors that supported Pakistan Stock Exchange to close on a positive note on Friday.
BRIndex100 gained 24.81 points or 0.72 percent to close at 3,478.22 points. BRIndex100 hit intraday high of 3,492.94 and intraday low of 3,453.41 points. Volumes stood at 208.257 million shares.
BRIndex30 increased by 224.87 points or 1.24 percent to close at 18,408.63 points with a turnover of 152.003 million shares.
The KSE-100 Index surged by 235.81 points or 0.70 percent and closed at 33,931.23 points. Trading activity also improved as daily volumes on the ready counter increased to233.020 million shares as compared to194.742 million shares traded Thursday.
The market capitalization increased by Rs 33 billion to Rs 6.484 trillion. Out of total 341 active scrips, 191 closed in positive, 131 in negative while the value of 19 stocks remained unchanged. Unity Foods was the volume leader with 25.846 million shares. It gained Re 0.17 to close at Rs 13.45 followed by Hascol Petroleum that inched up by Re 0.03 to close at Rs 14.74 with 19.550 million shares.
Unilever Foods and Sapphire Fiber were the top gainers with Rs 59.00 and Rs 51.03, respectively to close at Rs 9,711.00 and Rs 765.03. Nestle Pakistan and Rafhan Maize were the top losers with Rs 256.67 and Rs 150.00, respectively to close at Rs 6,873.33 and Rs 7,199.00.
BR Automobile Assembler Index gained 27.75 points or 0.49 percent to close at 5,726.42 points with total turnover of 1.322 million shares. BR Cement Index increased by 52.09 points or 1.26 percent to close at 4,188.92 points with 26.758 million shares. BR Commercial Banks Index closed at 6,490.97 points, up 34.84 points or 0.54 percent with 12.870 million shares.
BR Power Generation and Distribution Index surged by 78.75 points or 1.77 percent to close at 4,524.93 points with 10.060 million shares. BR Oil and Gas Index inched up by 37.31 points or 1.03 percent to close at 3,652.44 points with 42.565 million shares.
BR Tech. & Comm. Index gained 35.78 points or 2.95 percent to close at 1,247.78 points with 34.341 million shares. An analyst at Arif Habib Limited said that the market traded in the positive zone, which was primarily caused by slight improvement in international crude prices. E&P, OMCs largely remained positive, whereas Cement and Banking sector scrips also rebounded from recent lows. Cement Sector stocks saw an attrition of 10 percent in the past couple of sessions, from recent peaks, and highlighted an opportunity to the investors for rebound, especially being the last trading day of the roll-over week.
Pharmaceutical sector, on the contrary, slid down with FEROZ hitting lower circuit. Technology sector continued trending upward and posted high volumes with 34.3 million shares, followed by Cement (26.7 million shares) and Vanaspati (25.8 million shares).
Sectors contributing to the performance include E&P (up 68 points), Cement (up 43 points), Power (up 39 points), Banks (up 37 points), Insurance (up 26 points) and Food (down 31 points).
Stocks that contributed positively to the index include OGDC (up 53 points), HUBC (up 32 points), LUCK (up 31 points), PPL (up 24 points) and ABOT (up 16 points). Stocks that contributed negatively include ENGRO (down 34 points), NESTLE (down 26 points), MCB (down 16 points), PAKT (down 11 points) and PSO (down 8 points).