KARACHI: Pakistan Stock Exchange Thursday witnessed a bullish trend on the back of healthy buying in various sectors.

BRIndex100 gained 54.58 points or 1.2 percent to close at 4,602.56 points. BRIndex100 hit intraday high of 4,605.96 and intraday low of 4,546.49 points. Volumes stood at 439.627 million shares.

BRIndex30 increased by 343.37 points or 1.51 percent to close at 23,074.95 points with a turnover of 234.639 million shares.

The KSE-100 Index surged by 406.50 points or 0.94 percent to close at 43,766.69 points. Daily activity also improved as daily volumes on the ready counter increased to 497.562 million shares as compared to 433.020 million shares traded on Wednesday.

Foreign investors however remained net sellers of shares worth $3.797 million. The market capitalization increased by Rs 76 billion to Rs 8.015 trillion. Out of total 416 active scrips, 304 closed in positive and only 93 in negative while the value of 19 stocks remained unchanged.

Pak Refinery was the volume leader with 45.135 million shares and increased by Rs 1.55 to close at Rs 22.55 followed by Pak Elektron that surged by Rs 2.73 to close at Rs 39.65 with 41.731 million shares. Khyber Tobacco and Gillette Pak were the top gainers increasing by Rs 30.00 and Rs 29.42 respectively to close at Rs 430.00 and Rs 421.78 while Rafhan Maize and Nestle Pakistan were the top losers declining by Rs 100.00 and Rs 30.00 respectively to close at Rs 9000.00 and Rs 6900.00.

BR Automobile Assembler Index increased by 103.88 points or 1.22 percent to close at 8,645.58 points with total turnover of 9.029 million shares.

BR Cement Index gained 37.34 points or 0.61 percent to close at 6,113.09 points with 19.189 million shares.

BR Commercial Banks Index inched up by 80.12 points or 0.9 percent to close at 9,025.61 points with 38.895 million shares.

BR Power Generation and Distribution Index added 4.43 points or 0.09 percent to close at 5,017.32 points with 38.349 million shares.

BR Oil and Gas Index surged by 53.5 points or 1.31 percent to close at 4,127.62 points with 26.430 million shares.

BR Tech. & Comm. Index closed at 2,438.95 points, up 46.89 points or 1.96 percent with 47.637 million shares.

“Another day, another uptick in KSE-100 Index, which was attributed to a consistent and gradual increase in international crude oil prices that has seen an overnight jump of 2.0 percent in Brent and WTI prices”, an analyst at Arif Habib Limited said. Resultantly, OGDC and PPL ramped up with significant trading volumes, he added.

Among banks, HBL performed well especially in the last hour of trading that ensured decent closing above LDCP and recent past. Other sectors that contributed to the performance were Fertilizer (on the back of input tax adjustment) and Cement.

Sectors contributing to the performance include Banks (up 90 points), E&P (up 67 points), Fertilizer (up 62 points), Cement (up 30 points) and O&GMCs (up 26 points).

Stocks that contributed positively to the index include HBL (up 46 points), PPL (up 33 points), ENGRO (up 28 points), OGDC (up 26 points) and EFERT (up 18 points). Stocks that contributed negatively include HUBC (down 14 points), BAHL (down 4 points), NML (down 4 points), PAKT (down 2 points) and KTML (down 2 points).

Copyright Business Recorder, 2020