The Karachi share market on Tuesday witnessed a bullish trend on the back of local and foreign investors and institutional interest mainly in E&P, cement, fertiliser and banking sector stocks. The foreign investors remained active and a healthy single day inflow of $5.27 million of foreign investors'' portfolio investment was witnessed at the local equity market.
On the back of both local and foreign investors support, the benchmark KSE-100 index registered healthy increase of 225.61 points to close at the level of 13,303.33 points. Trading activity however remained low as the volumes at ready counter decreased to 247.813 million shares as compared to 256.860 million shares traded on Monday. Total market capitalisation increased by Rs 47 billion to Rs 3.428 trillion. Of the total 362 active stocks, 175 closed in positive and 98 in negative while the value of 89 stocks remained unchanged. Jahangir Siddiqui Co was the volume leader with 43.532 million shares and gained Re 0.57 to close at Rs 17.96.
Fresh buying was seen in the cement sector as DG Khan Cement, Lafarge Pakistan, Dewan Cement and Fauji Cement increased by Rs 1.51, Re 0.29, Re 0.32 and Re 0.26 to close at Rs 31.81, Rs 3.88, Rs 4.54 and Rs 5.44 with 15.301 million shares, 13.478 million shares, 7.917 million shares and 7.765 million shares respectively. Investors interest was also seen in the banking sector, as JS Bank, NBP and Soneri Bank surged by Re 0.96, Re 0.66 and Re 0.56 to close at Rs 6.78, Rs 51.78 and Rs 6.96 with 13.893 million shares, 8.083 million shares and 7.862 million shares respectively.
JS Investment inched up by Re 0.12 to close at Rs 10.41 with 11.274 million shares. TRG Pakistan gained Re 0.26 to close at Rs 3.63 with 10.024 million shares. Unilever Pak and Nestle Pak were the highest gainers increasing by Rs 269.78 and Rs 180.44 to close at Rs 5817.78 and Rs 4402.61 respectively while Unilever Food and Pak Gum & Chem were the worst losers declining by Rs 79.50 and Rs 2.86 to close at Rs 1751.00 and Rs 79.16 respectively. Hasnain Asghar Ali, head of equity sales at Invisor Securities said that the low quantum strength in multinationals allowed the index to avert an extended decline, accumulation, that triggered short covering in front line stocks mainly from cement sector those went on to hit the maximum followed, E&P, fertiliser and banking sectors kept the main board alive. Thus attracting even the short term traders for intraday trading besides keeping the turnover ticking, although low priced stocks did avert extended decline mainly due to gains on the benchmark, their turnover contribution however declined thereby keeping the stocks in a nervous trajectory.