KARACHI: Pakistan Stock Exchange on Tuesday witnessed a bullish trend and closed on strong positive note with healthy gains on the back of fresh buying mainly in banking, cement and some other sectors.

The benchmark KSE-100 index surged by 346.79 points or 0.83 percent and closed at 41,927.64 points. During the session, the index hit 41,991.53 points intra-day high, however closed at slightly lower level due to profit taking in some stocks.

Trading activities however remained low as total daily volumes on ready counter decreased to 220.030 million shares as compared to 268.083 million shares traded on previous session while total daily traded value on ready counter declined to Rs 6.494 billion against previous session’s Rs 8.975 billion.

BRIndex100 increased by 41.21 points or 0.98 percent to close at 4,258.27 points with total daily turnover of 190.156 million shares.

BRIndex30 closed at 14,930.14 points, down 9.81 points or 0.07 percent with total daily trading volumes of 123.359 million shares.

The foreign investors however remained net sellers of shares worth $47,881. Total market capitalization increased by Rs 25 billion to Rs 6.314 trillion. Out of total 357 active scrips, 179 closed in positive and 152 in negative while the value of 26 stocks remained unchanged.

Fauji Foods was the volume leader with 22.595 million shares and gained Re 0.43 to close at Rs 6.74 followed by Silk Bank that inched up by Re 0.09 to close at Rs 1.21 with 15.573 million shares. Maple Leaf Cement closed at Rs 28.41, up Re 0.71 with 8.694 million shares.

Unilever Foods and Lucky Cement were the top gainers increasing by Rs 1300.00 and Rs 30.08 respectively to close at Rs 20600.00 and Rs 431.25 while Bata Pak and J D W Sugar were the top losers declining by Rs 78.43 and Rs 26.85 respectively to close at Rs 1701.57 and Rs 331.15.

“A positive session was observed at the PSX to kick-off the business week as another Buyback of shares was announced by one of the largest conglomerate Lucky Cement Limited (LUCK), igniting the investor confidence to push up the shares price to upper circuit and keeping the entire Cement Sector in the limelight,” an analyst at Arif Habib Limited said.

As well as another positive announcement by Habib Bank Limited’s sponsors’ intention to acquire additional shares of HBL from the open market drove the bulls to take charge by changing the market sentiments.

The benchmark KSE-100 opened in the green zone and continued to trade with optimistic sentiments throughout the trading session, reaching an intraday high of plus 409.30 points. Investor activity increased considerably as decent volumes were recorded across the board, with third-tier equities dominating the volume board.

Sectors contributing to the performance include commercial banks (up 207.2 points), cement (up 122.1 points), fertilizer (up 49.5 points), Inv Banks / Inv Cos / Securities Cos (up 23.4 points) and Paper & Board (up 19.4 points).

BR Automobile Assembler Index inched up by 4.59 points or 0.06 percent to close at 7,722.51 points with total turnover of 1.676 million shares.

BR Cement Index surged by 159.79 points or 4.04 percent to close at 4,114.72 points with 24.497 million shares.

BR Commercial Banks Index increased by 212.01 points or 2.44 percent to close at 8,907.65 points with 40.751 million shares.

BR Power Generation and Distribution Index gained 23.39 points or 0.32 percent to close at 7,335.71 points with 13.809 million shares.

BR Oil and Gas Index lost 24.27 points or 0.61 percent to close at 3,963.42 points with 9.285 million shares. BR Tech & Comm Index declined by 42.19 points or 1.04 percent to close at 4,031.95 points with 20.052 million shares.

An analyst at Topline Securities said that Pakistan equities closed positive where the benchmark KSE-100 Index settled at 41,927 level, up 0.83 percent.

The day kicked off on a positive note over surprised Buyback by Habib Bank Limited’s Sponsor and Lucky Cement Limited second buyback where both stocks closed at their respective upper circuits.

Further, Investor interest also witnessed in UBL, ENGRO, DAWH and PKGS where these stocks cumulatively added 152 points in the KSE-100 Index.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2023