Bearish trend prevailed on the Lahore Stock Exchange (LSE) on Tuesday and the equities showed recovery amid descending transaction volume following investors' interest in the selective shares of oil and banking sectors. The LSE-25 index moved up to 2917.84 against 2862.24 of Monday, denoting an improvement of 55.60 points, while trading turnover squeezed to 20.581 million shares, as compared to last day volume of 23.937 million shares.
The banking and oil sector helped market recovery while cement remained under pressure. The market opened on a positive sign and kept on staying in green zone almost throughout the day. The investors showed interest in oil and banking sectors' shares whose values were closed on lower cap a day earlier, said analysts while commenting on the market trend.
The market had recorded substantial loss a day earlier when investors offloaded their holdings amid panic situation. However, the declining rates of the fundamentally strong shares attracted them to come back on buying course that provided significant support to the market, the analysts said. The experts were of the view that the investors should avoid long-term positions and restrict themselves to intra-day trading.
The investors should pocket available margin and get out of the market amid fast changing situation in the country in the back drop of military operation in South Waziristan, they said adding the investment in dividend oriented shares could yield a good margin to them.
The gainers were more than the losers, as out of a total of 105 companies, 59 registered gains, 13 went down, while values of 33 companies stayed glued to their previous levels. Mari Gas was improved by Rs 11.95, Millat Tractors gained Rs 7.82, Pak Oil Fields was appreciated by Rs 6.80, while Habib Bank, PSO and National Bank were up by Rs 6.21, Rs 4.94, Rs 3.95, respectively.
Among losers, Packages Limited lost Rs 7.55, Lucky Cement was declined by Rs 1.95 while EFU General Insurance and Royal Bank of Scotland were down by Rs 1.01 and Rs 0.85, respectively. Bank Alfalah was the market leader whose 3.752 million shares changed hands, while Arif Habib Securities stayed as runner up with 2.287 million shares.