After three consecutive bearish sessions, bulls succeeded to take charge of Karachi Stock Exchange Wednesday and the index recovered overnight losses. With a rise of 216.09 points, the KSE-100 index closed at 22,135.72 points against 21,919.63 points Tuesday.
The local bourse opened on positive mood and succeeded to maintain that level till the end of the day. The main index touched highest level of 22,246.86 during the intra-day trading. Commenting on the market performance, Samar Iqbal, an analyst at Topline Securities said visit of IMF has generated that Pakistan may get new loan that will help overcome balance of payment problems. This triggers renewed interest in Pakistan market after seeing correction for last few days.
"PSO and Engro Foods closed at its upper limit while decent activity was seen in BOP, KASB Bank, FCCL, and LPCL. This helped the market to settle above the 22,000 psychological level," she said. Market capitalisation followed suit and closed at Rs 5.367 trillion against Rs 5.326 trillion. The trading side could not maintain the same level and witnessed lower trend and the volume at ready counter stood at 306.287 million shares from 346.552 million shares Tuesday.
Out of total 379 active scrips, 224 went up, 133 went down and 22 remained unchanged. Bata (Pak) and Wyeth Pak were the top gainers with share prices increasing by Rs 70.00 and Rs 48.00 to close at Rs 1780.00 and Rs 1700.00, respectively. Unilever Food and Colgate Palmolive were the top losers with share prices decreasing by Rs 50.00 and Rs 38.50 to close at Rs 4750.00 and Rs 1844.50, respectively. Eight companies available in "Top Ten" chart witnessed increase in their share prices while the rest lost their strength. B.O. Punjab (R) SPOT got the position of "Volume Leader" even on third day, but it lost 27 paisa to close at Rs 2.52 on 64.577 million shares.
B.O. Punjab remained in green zone and with an increase of 79 paisa, it closed at Rs 14.91 on 29.157 million shares. KASB Bank lived in minus zone and with a reduction of 17 paisa, it closed at Rs 2.18 on 26.625 million shares. Fauji Cement gained 29 paisa to close at Rs 13.55 on some 16.008 million shares. Lafarge Pak increased by 17 paisa to close at Rs 9.36 on some 10.435 million shares. Maple Leaf Cement gained 60 paisa to close at Rs 24.42 on 9.548 million shares.
Pace (Pak) witnessed a jump of only one paisa to close at Rs 4.95 on some 8.931 million shares. DGK Cement posted an increase of Rs 2.92 to close at Rs 86.88 on a turnover of 8.140 million shares. PTCLA gained 10 paisa to close at Rs 22.10 on some 6.911 million shares. The last one among the Top Ten was Jahangir Siddiqui Company, which registered an increase of five paisa to close at Rs 13.89 on 6.153 million shares.