KARACHI: Pakistan Stock Exchange Tuesday witnessed a bullish trend on the back of healthy buying, mainly by local investors and institutions.

BRIndex100 gained 29.01 points or 0.68 percent to close at 4,300.07 points. BRIndex100 hit intraday high of 4,302.73 and intraday low of 4,271.06 points. Volumes stood at 571.310 million shares.

BRIndex30 increased by 193.48 points or 0.87 percent to close at 22,347.04 points with a turnover of 372.660 million shares.

The KSE-100 Index surged by 266.33 points or 0.65 percent and closed at 41,377.26 points. Trading activities also improved significantly as daily volumes on ready counter increased to 759.360 million shares as compared to 451.737 million shares traded Monday.

The foreign investors however remained on selling side and withdrew $1.689 million from the Pakistan capital market. Total market capitalization increased by Rs 43 billion to Rs 7.693 trillion. Out of total 424 active scrips, 278 closed in positive and 125 in negative while the value of 21 stocks remained unchanged.

Unity Foods (R) was the volume leader with 91.235 million shares and gained Rs 0.50 to close at Rs 3.86 followed by Pak Elektron that surged by Rs 2.62 to close at Rs 37.58 with 47.453 million shares. Unilever Foods and Colgate Palmolive were the top gainers increasing by Rs 787.00 and Rs 202.49 respectively to close at Rs 11,287.00 and Rs 3452.49 while Pak Tobacco and Island Textile were the top losers declining by Rs 79.00 and Rs 54.58 respectively to close at Rs 1700.00 and Rs 1014.42.

BR Automobile Assembler Index lost 5.9 points or 0.07 percent to close at 7,972.16 points with total turnover of 4.422 million shares.

BR Cement Index increased by 76.84 points or 1.36 percent to close at 5,728.00 points with 74.527 million shares.

BR Commercial Banks Index decreased by 17.73 points or 0.21 percent to close at 8,336.68 points with 58.180 million shares.

BR Power Generation and Distribution Index surged by 83.53 points or 1.61 percent to close at 5,279.78 points with 49.012 million shares.

BR Oil and Gas Index fell by 6.39 points or 0.15 percent to close at 4,184.37 points with 60.166 million shares.

BR Tech. & Comm. Index closed at 1,832.46 points, up 60.95 points or 3.44 percent with 56.747 million shares.

An analyst at Arif Habib Limited said that the market continued the bull-run by adding another 290 points during the session and closed plus 266 points.

Cement sector contributed the most on the index, whereby

LUCK, PIOC and MLCF performed well. Chemical sector also saw improved performance with SPL, DOL hitting upper circuits and similar performance in LOTCHEM and EPCL.

PSO declared financial results at the opening bell with a loss in the bottom line however the stock sustained selling pressure with PSO reverting to its opening price by the end of session.

Vanaspati sector topped the volumes with 135.9 million shares, followed by Cement (113.8 million shares) and Cable (60.5 million shares).

Sectors contributing to the performance include Cement (up 52 points), Power (up 46 points), Technology (up 45 points), Chemical (up 38 points) and Textile (up 26 points).

Stocks that contributed positively to the index include TRG (up 39 points), COLG (up 26 points), MARI (up 18 points), PKGS (up 17 points) and KAPCO (up 17 points). Stocks that contributed negatively include OGDC (down 29 points), HBL (down 29 points), PAKT (down 22 points), PPL (down 13 points) and UBL (down 8 points).

Copyright Business Recorder, 2020