Mixed sentiment prevailed on Lahore Stock Exchange on Friday and the equities remained under selling pressure on account of profit-taking but finally closed in green zone following buying on dip in select scrips. The LSE-25 index registered an increase of 53.60 points and closed at 1655.41 against 1601.81 of Tuesday.
While transaction volume marginally increased to 16.312 million shares as compared to previous 16.215 million shares. MCB Bank, Habib Bank, and National Bank of Pakistan from the banking sector, PPL, National Refinery and OGDC from oil sector and Engro Chemical and Fauji Fertiliser from energy sector helped market closure in green zone while selling pressure was seen in PSO, Pak Oilfields, Attock Refinery, Maple Leaf Cement, Arif Habib Bank, D G Khan Cement.
While continuing pre-holidays sentiment, the market opened on a healthy note but could not sustain because of selling pressure on account of profit-taking. The investors preferred offloading of their holdings to pocket the available margin. However, buying in select shares, whose values have come down to attractive levels during last trading hours, helped the market closure in positive column.
Muhammad Ishaq of Abbasi and Company said that buying support in fundamentally strong and dividend-oriented shares dragged the market into positive zone. He termed profit-taking a good and healthy sign and said the market was consistently rising for the last three/four trading sessions and thus the technical correction had become due which would be in the interest of market future.
He said that experts are of the view the market would stay bullish during next couple of weeks, particularly in next month because the December ending year results of the corporate sector would help improve market sentiment. The investors, in anticipation of encouraging financial results, were staying on buying course, he said and expressed fear that the protest announced by PML(N) leadership against the government could upset the market sentiment in February.
Declining stocks were just ahead of advancing ones as out of a total of 111 active issues, 32 companies registered gains, 35 landed in negative column, while 44 closed at their previous levels.
Among gainers, PPL improved by Rs 6.11, MCB Bank pocketed Rs 5.67, Engro Chemical gained Rs 5.57, while National Refinery and Packages were up by Rs 5.20 and Rs 4.92 respectively. First Capital Securities lost Rs 5.30, PSO declined by Rs 3.05, while Pak Oil Fields and Dawood Lawrencepur were down by Rs 2.25 and Rs 2.05 respectively. NIB Bank was market leader whose 2.033 million shares changed hands, followed by Fauji Fertiliser with 1.124 million shares.