Equities stayed range-bound on Lahore Stock Exchange (LSE) on Friday, the last trading day of the week. However, the sentiment remained bullish following buying interest in side items. The LSE-25 index ended at 4,879.79 points against of 4,875.74 of Thursday, registering a nominal increase of 4.05 points.
The volume receded slightly to 49.205 million shares from 50.764 million, depicting a fall of 1.559 million shares. The market was in a positive mood in the morning and during the pre-prayers session, people witnessed good trading. But pressure emerged following a rumour about attack on President Musharraf's plane, which led the market to erosions. However, recovery took place when the news was contracted by the concerned authorities, brokers said.
According to them, low profile shares were in focus of activity while index-based shares disappointed the players. Javed Omer Vohra and Arif Habib Securities once again emerged as top gainers while losers were led by Adamjee Insurance and UBL.
In the first session, the index moved up sharply, but the situation changed when the rumour of attack on President Musharraf hit the market, Amer Hussain Khan, equity sales head of Invest and Finance Securities Ltd said. However, he added that following contradiction of the news and strong buying interest in side items, recovery took place. He said that the sentiment remained bullish throughout the week. However, volume came down as people distanced from the market activity due to incident of Lal Masjid, he said.
Out of 138 traded scrips, 27 were up, 42 landed in minus zone while 69 maintained their earlier price levels. Major gainers were Javed Omer Vohra & Co improving by Rs 5.90, Arif Habib Securities Ltd Rs 4.60, Allied Bank Rs 3.50, Habib Metropolitan Bank Rs 1.65 and PPL Rs 1.55.
In minus zone, Adamjee Insurance lost Rs 6.40, UBL Rs 3.40, Pakistan Oilfields Rs 3.15, Standard Chartered Bank Rs 3.10 and Bank of Punjab Rs 2.75. Fauji Cement and Arif Habib Securities were the leaders of the volume, with 5.798 million and 3.872 million shares, respectively.