Stocks ended 395 points or 1.23 percent higher at 32,479 points Thursday, boosted mainly by surge in global equities and crude oil. Friday being Kashmir Day is a public holiday in the country. Starting Wednesday's 32,084 points, the benchmark KSE-100 index remained bullish to hit the intraday high of 32,503 points. Trading turnover also closed higher at 151 million shares worth Rs 9.42 billion.
In value, 227 of the 348 scrips traded rose, 106 declined and 15 stayed unchanged. The market cap also grew to Rs 6.85 trillion with foreign investors ending the day at net selling of $1.036 million. TRG Pakistan led volumes with 8.5 million shares as JSCL, Dewan Cement, Byco Petroleum, Fauji Cement, Pace Pakistan, Pak Elektron, Engro Fertiliser, PIBT and OGDC followed.
Futures trade dropped to 19.91 million contracts compared to 22.4 million of the previous session. "Bullish activity was witnessed at PSX amid surge in global equities and crude oil," said Ahsan Mehanti of Arif Habib Corp. The analyst observed trade in selected scrips across the board as investor eye key developments of CPEC projects upbeat for cement, energy and banking scrips,
"Strong financial results, oil & gas discovery of PPL & OGDC in Nashpa Block, upbeat local cement dispatches data for Jul-Jan'16 and likely release of $500m IMF tranche under the Extended Fund Facility played a catalytic role in the bullish activity," said he. Topline analyst Muhammad Rizwan said after the anticipation of better full-year results banking stocks pushed investors to take position in MCB, UBL and HBL. These scrips increased in the range of 0.46 to 1.75 percent.
"International oil jumped by approximately 10 percent after news from Russia regarding deal with Opec," they said. This helped OGDC, PPL and POL gain 2.5, 2.7 and five percent, respectively EFERT and Engro remained in the limelight as the former is due to announce its full-year results next week.