KARACHI: A bullish trend on Pakistan Stock Exchange continued on Wednesday on the back of healthy buying by local and foreign investors coupled with institutional support.

BRIndex100 gained 52.09 points or 1.1 percent to close at 4,804.88 points. BRIndex100 hit intraday high of 4,841.21 and intraday low of 4,774.75 points. Volumes stood at 241.439 million shares.

BRIndex30 increased by 308.46 points or 1.27 percent to close at 24,643.19 points with a turnover of 139.402 million shares.

The KSE-100 index surged by 380.02 points or 0.85 percent to close at 44,943.61 points. Trading activity also improved as daily volumes on ready counter increased to 259.868 million shares as compared to 221.502 million shares traded Tuesday.

The foreign investors also remained net buyers of shares worth $1.267 million. The market capitalization increased by Rs 22 billion to Rs 7.754 trillion. Out of total 370 active scrips, 227 closed in positive and 126 in negative while the value of 17 stocks remained unchanged.

Unity Foods was the volume leader with 42.393 million shares and gained Rs 0.53 to close at Rs 34.99 followed by Telecard Limited that closed at Rs 15.58, up Rs 0.83 with 32.751 million shares. Island Textile and Sapphire Textile were the top gainers increasing by Rs 149.99 and Rs 63.00 respectively to close at Rs 2199.99 and Rs 918.00 while AKD Capital and Shield Corp were the top losers declining by Rs 33.61 and Rs 19.00 respectively to close at Rs 456.38 and Rs 366.50.

BR Automobile Assembler Index gained 75.64 points or 0.88 percent to close at 8,660.68 points with total turnover of 1.210 million shares.

BR Cement Index increased by 71.51 points or 1.04 percent to close at 6,968.41 points with 8.063 million shares.

BR Commercial Banks Index inched up by 73.37 points or 0.83 percent to close at 8,878.05 points with 10.244 million shares.

BR Power Generation and Distribution Index surged by 242.85 points or 4.65 percent to close at 5,461.22 points with 12.345 million shares.

BR Oil and Gas Index closed at 3,850.34 points, up 55.14 points or 1.45 percent with 7.907 million shares.

BR Tech. & Comm. Index lost 53.69 points or 1.38 percent to close at 3,840.84 points with 89.152 million shares.

An analyst at Arif Habib Limited said that the market continued the uptrend, led by Power, Banks, E&P and O&GMCs other than technology stocks which saw erratic movement that dragged NETSOL and TRG down, causing the KSE-100 Index to go down.

The KSE-100 index posted an overall gain of 610 points during the session and closed the session plus 380 points.

News of partial release of funds by the government to settle IPPs’ outstanding dues, which helped HUBC and KAPCO to perform. In the same vein, PSO also performed with the prospect of receipt of funds from the IPPs.

Sectors contributing to the performance include Power (up 116 points), Banks (up 75 points), E&P (up 64 points), Cement (up 48 points), O&GMCs (up 32 points) and Technology (down 53 points).

Stocks that contributed positively to the index include HUBC (up 98 points), PSO (up 34 points), POL (up 28 points), LUCK (up 21 points) and PPL (up 21 points). Stocks that contributed negatively include TRG (down 54 points), SCBPL (down 11 points), NRL (down 8 points), HINOON (down 4 points) and EFERT (down 3 points).

Copyright Business Recorder, 2021