KARACHI: Pakistan Stock Exchange Monday witnessed a bullish trend due to healthy buying on expectations of early resumption of the IMF programme.
The market opened on positive note and remained bullish throughout the session, however profit-taking in certain stocks minimized the intraday gains.
The benchmark KSE-100 Index hit 41,797.71 points intraday high, however closed on slightly lower level at 41,434.33 points, up 97.33 points or 0.24 percent.
Trading activity also improved as daily volumes on ready counter increased to 221.551 million shares as compared to 194.817 million shares traded on last Friday however, daily traded value on ready counter declined to Rs 7.252 billion against previous session’s Rs 7.768 billion.
BRIndex100 gained 12.18 points or 0.3 percent to close at 4,112.76 points with daily turnover of 200.956 million shares.
BRIndex30 increased by 145.07 points or 1.0 percent to close at 14,651.06 points with total daily trading volumes of 163.434 million shares.
Foreign investors however remained net sellers of shares worth $1.298 million. Total market capitalization declined by Rs 9 billion to Rs 6.347 trillion. Out of 334 active scrips, 206 closed in positive and 111 in negative while the value of 17 stocks remained unchanged.
WorldCall Telecom was the volume leader with 42.073 million shares and closed at Rs 1.31, up Rs 0.01 followed by Telecard Limited that increased by Rs 1.00 to close at Rs 6.93 with 18.068 million shares. TPL Properties gained Rs 0.23 to close at Rs 14.70 with 10.637 million shares.
Pak Services and Bata Pak were the top gainers increasing by Rs 117.00 and Rs 50.00 respectively to close at Rs 2310.00 and Rs 1750.00 while Rafhan Maize and Nestle Pakistan were the top losers declining by Rs 499.99 and Rs 133.97 respectively to close at Rs 8000.01 and Rs 5266.03.
“To begin the business week, a positive session was witnessed at the PSX,” an analyst at Arif Habib Limited said. The market started rising shortly after the opening bell rung owing to expectations of reaching a staff-level agreement with the IMF this week as the market reached an intraday high of 460.71 points. Investors gained much confidence after the Pak Rupee gained strength against the US dollar. Investors participation remained active throughout the day as healthy volumes were observed across-the-board.
Sectors contributing to the performance include Miscellaneous (up 61.5 points), Cement (up 37.4 points), E&P (up 35.6 points), Technology & Communication (up 31.6 points) and Pharmaceuticals (up 9.4 points).
BR Automobile Assembler Index gained 42.82 points or 0.57 percent to close at 7,577.20 points with total turnover of 4.938 million shares.
BR Cement Index increased by 42.87 points or 1.14 percent to close at 3,787.96 points with 17.257 million shares.
BR Commercial Banks Index lost 16.15 points or 0.19 percent to close at 8,286.08 points with 19.862 million shares.
BR Power Generation and Distribution Index inched up by 11.23 points or 0.16 percent to close at 6,984.06 points with 12.034 million shares.
BR Oil and Gas Index added 15.59 points or 0.39 percent to close at 4,030.85 points with 29.781 million shares.
BR Tech. & Comm. Index closed at 4,255.02 points, up 50.92 points or 1.21 percent with 76.213 million shares.
An analyst at Topline Securities said that Pakistan equities closed slight positive where the benchmark KSE-100 Index settled at 41,434 level, up 0.24 percent.
The market opened on a positive note as investors cheered the news flow of resumption of government virtual talks with the IMF, further approval of ICBC rollover of $1.3 billion which led the benchmark KSE100 Index to make an intraday high of plus 460 points.
PPL, TRG, LUCK, ABOT and CHCC were the major gainers in the trading session cumulatively added 105 points in KSE-100 Index.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2023