KARACHI: Pakistan Stock Exchange on Thursday witnessed a bullish trend and closed on strong positive note due to healthy buying in almost all sectors.

The benchmark KSE-100 Index surged by 303.20 points or 0.67 percent and closed at 45,398.31 points. The index hit 45,451.65 points intraday high and 45,067.96 points intraday low.

Trading activity also improved as daily volumes on ready counter increased to 464.226 million shares as compared to 245.453 million shares traded on Wednesday. The daily traded value on ready counter increased to Rs 10.104 billion against previous session’s Rs 9.402 billion.

BRIndex100 added 53.36 points or 1.18 percent to close at 4,589.71 points with total daily turnover of 432.041 million shares.

BRIndex30 increased by 226.29 points or 1.44 percent to close at 15,942.53 points with total daily trading volumes of 348.860 million shares.

Foreign investors also remained net buyers of shares worth $335,300. Total market capitalization increased by Rs 15 billion to Rs 6.892 trillion. Out of total 347 active scrips, 227 closed in positive and only 93 in negative while the value of 27 stocks remained unchanged.

WorldCall Telecom was the volume leader with 185.190 million shares and gained Rs 0.12 to close at Rs 1.43 followed by Bank of Punjab that inched up by Rs 0.23 to close at Rs 4.20 with 19.500 million shares. K-Electric closed at Rs 2.01, up Rs 0.07 with 15.889 million shares.

Sapphire Fiber and Al-Abbas Sugar were the top gainers increasing by Rs 61.00 and Rs 29.00 respectively to close at Rs 1295.00 and Rs 510.00 while Colgate Palmolive and Rafhan Maize were the top losers declining by Rs 112.38 and Rs 100.00 respectively to close at Rs 1386.05 and Rs 8400.00.

“Across the board buying took KSE-100 index to close at 45,398, gaining 303 points,” Muhammad Shuja Qureshi at JS Global Capital said. SHEL moved to its upper limit very early in the day, triggering a rally in the oil sector. Cement and steel sectors also recovered from their lows of previous session.

The market turnover increased to 464 million shares, where WTL (up 9.2 percent), BOP (up 5.8 percent), KEL (up 3.6 percent), TELE (up 3.3 percent) and UNITY (up 7.5 percent) were the volume leaders.

BR Automobile Assembler Index gained 77.33 points or 0.92 percent to close at 8,487.67 points with total turnover of 9.905 million shares.

BR Cement Index added 64.92 points or 1.33 percent to close at 4,951.99 points with 14.473 million shares.

BR Commercial Banks Index closed at 9,996.40 points, up 58.95 points or 0.59 percent with 46.475 million shares.

BR Power Generation and Distribution Index inched up by 52.86 points or 0.62 percent to close at 8,538.55 points with 41.571 million shares.

BR Oil and Gas Index surged by 73.01 points or 1.79 percent to close at 4,160.03 points with 35.852 million shares.

BR Tech. & Comm. Index increased by 45.7 points or 1.17 percent to close at 3,965.96 points with 213.164 million shares. An analyst at Topline Securities said Pakistan equities had a bullish day, market to stay in the green zone through the day and settled at 45,398, up 303 points or 0.67 percent.

Buying momentum was observed across-the-board as investors opted to make some trading positions in Banks, Auto, Refinery and E&P sector’s stocks. During the trading hours SHEL, HCAR, NRL, ZIL and ABOT contributed positively to the index. On the other hand some profit taking was observed in COLG, RMPL and NESTLE.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2023