Bullish sentiments prevailed on the Lahore Stock Exchange on Monday and the equities registered gains under the lead of fertiliser, oil, banking and cement sectors. The LSE-25 index jumped to 3546.87 against 3442.87 of last Friday, denoting an improvement of 104 points, while transaction volume was marginally increased to 1.228 million shares compared with previous volume of 1.164 million shares.
The market was opened on a healthy sign and kept on moving up throughout the day due to the investors' interest in bluechips and read board shares. As a result, MCB Bank, National Bank, Silk Bank, Bank of Punjab, OGDCL, Pakistan Oilfields, PPL, Attock Refinery, Byco Petroleum, Lucky Cement, D G Khan Cement, Fauji Cement, Fauji Fertiliser, Engro Corporation and Fatima Fertiliser registered handsome gains. However, Sui Northern registered marginal decline.
The advancing stocks were far ahead of the declining ones, as out of a total of 91 active issues, 38 companies posted gains, one registered loss while 52 companies remained unchanged at their previous closing. Among gainers, MCB Bank was improved by Rs 7.04, OGDC gained Rs 6.42, Pakistan Oilfields was appreciated by Rs 6.06 while PPL, Lucky Cement and Fauji Fertiliser were up by Rs 5.21, Rs 3.71, Rs 3.43, respectively. In the negative column, Sui Northern was declined by 4-paisa. Silk Bank with trading of 161,499 shares topped the volume leaders followed by Lafarge Pakistan Cement with 129,919 shares.