KARACHI: Pakistan Stock Exchange on Friday witnessed bullish trend and closed on strong positive note with healthy gains on the back of reviving investor interest mainly in the E&P Sector stocks coupled with institutional support.

The benchmark KSE-100 index surged by 1,893.08 points or 2.13 percent and once again crossed 90,000 psychological level to close at 90,859.85 points. During the session, the index hit 91,133.28 points intra-day high however failed to sustain this level due to profit taking in some stocks.

Trading activities however remained low as total daily volumes on ready counter decreased to 465.865 million shares as compared to 546.274 million shares traded on Thursday while total daily traded value on the ready counter declined to Rs 23.089 billion against previous session’s Rs 24.117 billion.

BRIndex100 soared by 211.08 points or 2.23 percent to close at 9,694.15 points with total daily turnover of 419.868 million shares.

BRIndex30 increased by 789.3 points or 2.78 percent to close at 29,160.28 points with total daily trading volumes of 223.684 million shares.

Total market capitalization increased by Rs 171 billion to Rs 11.707 trillion. Out of total 430 active scrips, 220 closed in positive and 156 in negative while the value of 54 stocks remained unchanged.

Silk Bank was the volume leader with 62.534 million shares however lost Rs 0.16 to close at Rs 0.94 followed by K-Electric that gained Rs 0.23 to close at Rs 4.67 with 57.568 million shares. WorldCall Telecom closed at the previous session’s closing level of Rs 1.22 without any change with 27.214 million shares.

Unilever Pakistan Foods and Siemens (Pakistan) Engineering were the top gainers increasing by Rs 572.11 and Rs 58.62 respectively to close at Rs 19,161.11 and Rs 1,451.49 while Rafhan Maize Products Company and Sapphire Fibres Limited were the top losers declining by Rs 158.40 and Rs 61.61 respectively to close at Rs 7,541.60 and Rs 1,216.11.

An analyst at Topline Securities said that the market returned to its course as positive session was observed largely led by PPL, where the company held its Corporate Briefing Session in which it mentioned that cash collection ratio exceeded 100 percent in the first quarter of CY25 and indicated that there may be improvement in payout going forward given decline in receivables.

Single digit CPI inflation number for the month of October at 7.2 percent YoY also provided boost to investor sentiment, where increased investor activity was observed in the second half of trading session.

PPL (Rs3.23 billion), PSO (Rs.3.03 billion) and OGDC (Rs.2.51 billion) were highest traded value wise companies, as they garnered investor interest on the back of expectation of increase in payout given improvement in receivable position.

Silkbank was the volume leader as UBL Bank informed the Exchange that it has submitted an offer for the amalgamation of Silk bank with and into UBL and proposed a ratio of 01 new UBL ordinary share for every 325 Silk bank ordinary shares. BR Automobile Assembler Index soared by 204.09 points or 1.14 percent to close at 18,085.75 points with total turnover of 4.474 million shares.

BR Cement Index surged by 438.66 points or 4.73 percent to close at 9,708.62 points with 38.340 million shares.

BR Commercial Banks Index added 333.2 points or 1.34 percent to close at 25,159.08 points with 90.439 million shares.

BR Power Generation and Distribution Index gained 138.53 points or 0.91 percent to close at 15,282.25 points with 73.807 million shares.

BR Oil and Gas Index increased by 342.75 points or 3.99 percent to close at 8,931.73 points with 81.637 million shares.

BR Tech & Comm Index closed at 4,392.86 points, up 49.51 points or 1.14 percent with 64.534 million shares.

Ahsan Mehanti at Arif Habib Corporation said stocks showing sharply recovery amid upbeat data on CPI Inflation at 7.2 percent YoY in October 2024 and IMF revised lower inflation projections at 9.5 percent for FY25.

He said speculations over expected major SBP policy rate cut next week and surge in SBP reserves to $11.2 billion played a catalyst role in record bullish activity in PSX.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2024