KARACHI: Pakistan Stock Exchange on Thursday witnessed a positive trend with increasing trading volumes on the back of fresh buying at available low levels.

The benchmark KSE-100 Index increased by 179.40 points or 0.37 percent and closed at 48,325.84 points. The index hit 48,397.38 points intraday high and 47,893.71 points intraday low.

Trading activity also improved as daily volumes on ready counter increased to 226.935 million shares as compared to 194.576 million shares traded on Wednesday while total daily traded value on ready counter increased to Rs 10.021 billion against previous session’s Rs 7.670 billion.

BRIndex100 gained 16.85 points or 0.35 percent to close at 4,898.34 points with 180.008 million shares.

BRIndex30 added 101.53 points or 0.59 percent to close at 17,264.32 points with total daily trading volumes of 110.331 million shares.

The market capitalization increased by Rs 23 billion to Rs 7.202 trillion. Out of total 325 active scrips, 155 closed in positive and 147 in negative while the value of 23 stocks remained unchanged.

Dewan Motors was the top volume leader with 25.214 million shares however lost Rs 0.91 to close at Rs 14.23 followed by JS Bank that closed at Rs 5.59, up Rs 0.02 with 14.384 million shares. Pak Refinery gained Rs 0.54 to close at Rs 16.71 with 12.576 million shares.

Ismail Industries and Sanofi-Aventis were the top gainers increasing by Rs 42.50 and Rs 38.00 respectively to close at Rs 642.50 and Rs 800.00 while Sapphire Fiber and Rafhan Maize were the top losers declining by Rs 91.50 and Rs 53.20 respectively to close at Rs 1158.50 and Rs 8446.80.

“It was a consolidation day in the Pakistan Equities market,” an analyst at Topline Securities said.

During the trading hours, SYS, POL, PPL, OGDC and FFC, being the star stocks cumulatively contributed 177 points. On the flip side, ENGRO, MCB and MEBL collectively lost 141 points, as they saw some profit taking.

BR Automobile Assembler Index gained 24.08 points or 0.27 percent to close at 9,053.24 points with 27.329 million shares.

BR Cement Index inched up by 5.5 points or 0.11 percent to close at 5,105.28 points with 6.842 million shares.

BR Commercial Banks Index lost 24.4 points or 0.21 percent to close at 11,389.06 points with 33.992 million shares.

BR Power Generation and Distribution Index added 38.4 points or 0.41 percent to close at 9,315.42 points with 26.318 million shares.

BR Oil and Gas Index increased by 53.47 points or 1.22 percent to close at 4,433.65 points with 23.087 million shares.

BR Tech. & Comm. Index surged by 82.81 points or 2.08 percent to close at 4,061.69 points with 26.020 million shares.

Muhammad Waqar Iqbal at JS Global Capital said that the market started the day on a negative note but later saw a rebound as buying activity was observed in oil stocks.

DFML (down 6.0 percent), JSBL (up 0.4 percent), PRL (up 3.3 percent), OGDC (up 1.3 percent) and PPL (up 1.8 percent) were the volume leaders.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2023