Oil sector led the equities upward amid bullish sentiments on the Lahore Stock Exchange (LSE) on Friday on account of the investors' interest who stayed on buying course throughout the day. The LSE-25 index jumped to 3189.12 against 3108.62 of Thursday, showing an improvement of 80.50 points.
While transaction volume also increased to 15.048 million shares, as compared to 12.697 million shares traded a day earlier. The market opened on a healthy note but could not sustain because of selling in some scrips during early hours of trading in first session. However, after taking a dip in second session, the market started rising and vertically improved by over 80 points.
The oil sector shares including OGDC, Pak Oil Fields, Shell Pak, PPL and PSO played key role in keeping the market in green zone. Similarly, MCB Bank, National Bank, Bank of Punjab, Arif Habib Securities, Nishat Mills, Sui Northern and Fauji Fertiliser Bin Qasim also helped market stay in positive column. On the contrary, Lucky Cement, Bank Al-Habib, Bank Alfalah and Kot Addu Power remained under pressure and ended in red zone.
The advancing stocks were ahead of declining ones. Out of a total of 108 active issues, 40 companies showed strength and posted gains, 28 landed in minus column, while values of 40 companies stayed unchanged at their previous levels.
OGDC gained Rs 5.95, MCB Bank was improved by Rs 5.69, Pak Oil Fields and Shell Pakistan were appreciated by Rs 3.70 each, while Treet Corporation and PPL were up by Rs 3.08 and Rs 2.79, respectively. In the minus column, ICI Pakistan lost Rs 2.20, Lucky Cement was declined by 68-paisa, while Bank Al-Habib was down by 66-paisa. Lafarge Pakistan Cement with trading of 2.129 million shares topped the volume leaders followed by Bank Alfalah with 1.972 million shares.