KARACHI: Pakistan Stock Exchange on Tuesday witnessed a bullish trend and closed on strong positive note with healthy gains on the back of aggressive buying mainly by local investors coupled with institutional support.
The benchmark KSE-100 Index surged by 612.09 points or 0.94 percent and crossed 65,000 psychological level to close at 65,502.60 points. The index hit 65,624.73 points intraday high, however closed at slightly lower level due to profit-taking in some stocks.
Trading activity also improved as daily volumes on ready counter increased to 323.281 million shares as compared to 211.758 million shares traded on Monday. The daily traded value on the ready counter increased to Rs 17.059 billion against previous session’s Rs 7.785 billion.
BRIndex100 added 55.79 points or 0.83 percent to close at 6,753.67 points with a daily turnover of 279.513 million shares.
BRIndex30 gained 28.22 points or 0.12 percent to close at 22,642.63 points with total daily trading volumes of 187.544 million shares.
Foreign investors however remained on the selling side and withdrew $1,654 million from the local equity market. Total market capitalization increased by Rs 65 billion to Rs 9.262 trillion. Out of total 341 active scrips, 184 closed in positive and 140 in negative while the value of 17 stocks remained unchanged.
WorldCall Telecom was the volume leader with 27.822 million shares and inched up by Rs 0.02 to close at Rs 1.38 followed by Telecard Limited that gained Rs 0.23 to close at Rs 9.23 with 20.828 million shares. Bank of Punjab lost Rs 0.09 to close at Rs 6.14 with 17.912 million shares.
Unilever Pakistan Foods and Pakistan Tobacco Company were the top gainers increasing by Rs 200.00 and Rs 67.20 respectively to close at Rs 21,700.00 and Rs 1,059.20 while Sapphire Fibres and Nestle Pakistan were the top losers declining by Rs 91.67 and Rs 80.00 respectively to close at Rs 1,415.00 and Rs 7,420.00.
An analyst at Topline Securities said the KSE-100 Index opened on a positive note where the market made an intraday high of plus 734.22 point and closed at 65,502.59 level (up by 612.09 points).
This positivity can be attributed to the State Bank of Pakistan decision to keep the monetary policy rate unchanged at 22 percent. Furthermore, whispers of institutional buying circulated, casting a favourable light on the market and contributing to its upward momentum.
A widespread surge of buying activity swept through the market, with Banks, Fertilizer, and E&P sectors emerging as the day’s primary beneficiaries where MCB, MEBL, HMB, BAHL, EFERT, FFC, POL and MARI cumulatively contributed 319 points to the index. Investor’s interest was witnessed in the banking sector where HMB (up 4.85 percent), MCB (up 3.09 percent), MEBL (up 2.52 percent) and UBL (up 0.80 percent) gained to close higher than their previous day close.
BR Automobile Assembler Index surged by 173.79 points or 1.13 percent to close at 15,614.76 points with total turnover of 10.359 million shares.
BR Cement Index fell by 38.58 points or 0.59 percent to close at 6,480.35 points with 10.992 million shares.
BR Commercial Banks Index increased by 147.69 points or 0.9 percent to close at 16,570.03 points with 49.972 million shares.
BR Power Generation and Distribution Index lost 35.28 points or 0.24 percent to close at 14,382.01 points with 26.079 million shares.
BR Oil and Gas Index added 43.85 points or 0.72 percent to close at 6,148.74 points with 30.546 million shares.
BR Tech. & Comm. Index gained 22.84 points or 0.61 percent to close at 3,775.51 points with 75.349 million shares.
Ahsan Mehanti at Arif Habib Corporation said that stocks closed bullish after Pakistan hits TTP hideouts in response to terror attacks and SBP status quo in the key policy rate.
He said speculations for imminent SLA after the IMF final review talks and SBP Governor assurance for $2.0 billion rollover in two weeks and plans to seek $4.0 billion further payment rollovers played a catalyst role in bullish close at PSX.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2024