Equities moved both the ways on the Lahore Stock Exchange (LSE) on Friday and finally stayed in green zone on account of investors' interest who made fresh entries in banking and oil sectors' shares. The LSE-25 index posted a gain of 17.66 points and was ended at 3010.13 against 2992.47 of Thursday, while transaction volume marginally declined to 15.181 million shares, as compared to 15.588 million shares traded a day earlier.
The market opened on a negative sign but soon after taking a dip of 10 points started rising following fresh buying in selective scrips. However, buying tempo could not remain intact during first trading session because of offloading by the investors. During second session, the market took upward move and kept on rising till the close of trading.
National Bank, Habib Bank, Bank of Punjab, Bank Alfalah, Pakistan Oil Fields, PPL, Arif Habib Securities, Javed Omer Vohra and Co, D.G. Khan Cement, Lucky Cement performed well, while MCB Bank, Faysal Bank, Allied Bank, PSO and Fauji Fertiliser Bin Qasim remained under pressure. The market experts were of the view that market is likely to continue weekend closing trend in the next week. The market, on the basis of fundamentals, has potential to cross 10500 level in couple of days trading.
The advancing stocks were just ahead of declining ones, as out of a total of 105 active issues, 38 showed strength and improved their values, 30 went down, while 37 companies stayed unchanged at their previous levels. Pak Oil Fields gained Rs 3.34, Lucky Cement was improved by Rs 2.96, National Bank was appreciated by Rs 1.77, while Arif Habib Securities and PPL moved up Rs 1.69 and Rs 1.44, respectively.
Service Industries lost Rs 8.51, Ferozsons Laboratories was declined by Rs 6.01, MCB Bank was depreciated by Rs 1.20, while Mari Gas was down by Re 1.00. Lotte Pakistan was the market leader whose 6.293 million shares changed hands followed by Byco Petroleum with trading of 1.837 million shares.