KARACHI: Pakistan Stock Exchange Thursday witnessed a bullish trend and closed on strong positive note with healthy gains due to aggressive buying as investors remained optimistic about the Staff Level Agreement between the government and the IMF for the 9th tranche of the Extended Fund Facility.

The benchmark KSE-100 Index increased by 226.61 points or 0.55 points and closed at 41,585.54 points. The index hit 41,647.63 points intraday high level however closed at slightly lower level due to profit-taking in some stocks.

Trading activity also improved significantly as total daily volumes on ready counter increased to 229.088 million shares as compared to 162.884 million shares traded Wednesday while total daily traded value on ready counter increased to Rs 7.431 billion against previous session’s Rs 6.333 billion.

BRIndex100 gained 44.37 points or 1.08 percent to close at 4,167.67 points with total daily turnover of 198.648 million shares. BRIndex30 surged by 261.26 points or 1.78 percent to close at 14,933.13 points with total daily trading volumes of 144.212 million shares.

Foreign investors however remained on the selling side and withdrew $1.264 million from local equity market. Total market capitalization increased by Rs 22 billion to Rs 6.367 trillion. Out of total 324 active scrips, 205 closed in positive and 100 in negative while the value of 19 stocks remained unchanged.

WorldCall Telecom was the volume leader with 26.617 million shares and gained Rs 0.04 to close at Rs 1.31 followed by Telecard Limited that increased by Rs 0.80 to close at Rs 7.64 with 17.051 million shares. Maple Leaf Cement closed at Rs 25.94, up Rs 0.88 with 12.410 million shares.

Atlas Honda Limited and Thal Ind. Corporation were the top gainers increasing by Rs 19.59 and Rs 19.34 respectively to close at Rs 280.79 and Rs 288.90 while Pak Services and Pak Tobacco were the top losers declining by Rs 152.09 and Rs 43.57 respectively to close at Rs 1875.88 and Rs 675.10. “Another affirmative day was witnessed at the PSX,” an analyst at Arif Habib Limited said. The benchmark KSE-100 Index traded in the positive zone throughout the trading session as the investors remained optimistic about the Staff Level Agreement between the government and the IMF for the 9th tranche of the Extended Fund Facility. Investors’ participation remained active all through the session maintaining the bullish momentum all day. Volumes across the board remained healthy while the cement sector stayed in the spotlight.

Sectors contributing to the performance include Cement (up 88.7 points), Power Generation & Distribution (up 49.2 points), E&P (up 44.3 points), Fertilizer (up 26.1 points) and Commercial Banks (up 22.4 points).

BR Automobile Assembler Index gained 41.22 points or 0.55 percent to close at 7,568.27 points with total turnover of 3.648 million shares.

BR Cement Index surged by 124.24 points or 3.2 percent to close at 4,007.49 points with 44.057 million shares.

BR Commercial Banks Index inched up by 29.79 points or 0.36 percent to close at 8,320.55 points with 28.942 million shares.

BR Power Generation and Distribution Index increased by 113.45 points or 1.6 percent to close at 7,204.30 points with 12.290 million shares.

BR Oil and Gas Index added 39.64 points or 0.99 percent to close at 4,045.42 points with 24.459 million shares.

BR Tech. & Comm. Index closed at 4,286.11 points, up 36.16 points or 0.85 percent with 49.790 million shares.

Muhammad Shuja Qureshi at JS Global Capital said that the opening bell saw buying in the refinery sector that set the tone for the day. Investors remained hopeful that staff level agreement with the IMF would materialize in the coming days. Buying was witnessed across the board and index gained 227 points to close at 41,586.

The KSE-100 Index volumes also rose to 114 million shares where WTL (up 3.1 percent), TELE (up 11.7 percent), MLCF (up 3.5 percent), SILK (up 11.2 percent) and HASCOL (down 0.7 percent) were the volume leaders.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2023