The oil and banking sectors on Wednesday led the equities upward on the Lahore Stock Exchange (LSE) amid improved trading turnover on account of fresh entries by the local investors and the foreign funds. The LSE-25 index rose to 3324.69 against 3273.58 of Tuesday, denoting an improvement of 51.11 points, while transaction volume considerably increased to 24.733 million shares as compared to 18.075 million shares.
PPL, OGDC, Attock Refinery, PSO, Byco Petroleum of the oil sector helped market stay in green zone, while banking companies like Silk Bank, Bank of Punjab, Bank Alfalah, National Bank and MCB Bank also supported the market sentiments. However, energy sector remained under pressure whose Sui Northern, Sui Southern, Hub Power were ended in red zone.
The market opened on a healthy sign and persistently moved up throughout the day. According to the analysts, most of the shares are being traded below their value that has made the Pakistani stock market attractive for the foreign investors. The increasing foreign inflow has become a source of encouragement for the local investors who are picking selective shares of various sectors including oil and banking.
The trading turnover is also improving gradually, which is a good omen for the market future. This also indicates that the local investors' confidence in the stocks business is improving day by day, they said and added the profit taking can not be ruled out as the investors may adopt conscious approach to secure their positions.
The advancing stocks were ahead of declining ones. As many as 57 companies posted gains, 18 registered losses, while values of 38 companies stayed glued to their previous levels. KSB Pumps gained Rs 3.78, PPL was improved by Rs 3.47 First Capital Equities was appreciated by Rs 2.96 while ICI Pakistan, OGDC and Mari Gas were up by Rs 2.91, Rs 2.79 and Rs 2.54, respectively. Sui Northern lost 84-paisa, Sui Southern was declined by 77-paisa, while Haseeb Waqas Sugar and Soneri Bank were down by 50-paisa and 42-paisa, respectively. Lotte Pakistan PTA topped the volume leaders with 8.536 million shares followed by Silk Bank with 6.325 million shares.