Bulls dominated the proceedings at the share market Tuesday. The KSE-100 index gained another 188 points to close at 39,664 points backed by oil scrips. Rallying from Monday's 39,476 level, the benchmark index was seen hitting the high and low of 39,736 points and 39,476 pints in intraday trade. With trade volume surging to 221 million shares the value of stocks traded appreciated to Rs 11.53 billion from the previous Rs 7.93 billion. Of the 386 scrips traded, 226 landed in green, 142 in red and 18 stayed unchanged.
The market capital accumulated to Rs 7.91 trillion. Foreign portfolio investment showed a negative trend of $1.25 million net selling. "Stocks closed bullish led by blue-chip oil scrips after WTI crude rose above $43/barrel on Opec output cut speculations," viewed Ahsan Mehanti at Arif Habib Corp. The analyst cited higher cotton prices, reports on rising fertiliser sales and bullish global equities as the day's catalyst.
Ahmed Saeed Khan of JS Research saw positivity prevailing on the bourse saying "The bulls today were leading due to the energy and the banking sector". K-Electric kept leading volumes with 33 million share trade. The privately-run power utility, however, lost value to Rs 8.68 from Rs 8.73, its opening rate. Other most traded issues were SSGC, PTCL, Fauji Cement, Tri-Star Polyester, SNGPL, Balochistan glass limited, Pak Elektron, Askari Bank and Jahangir Siddiqui Company Limited.
The energy sector rallied around 1.42 percent on the back of what analyst Khans aid recovering global crude oil prices. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) traded comfortably around $43 a barrel. All major players remained comfortably in the green zone, where top performers of the sector were OGDC and POL with 1.3 and 3.3 percent gains. The automobile sector rallied 0.69 percent because of depreciating Yen. The biggest index movers were HCAR, up 1.11 percent, and INDU, up 0.59 percent. Banking sector kept growing as HBL and NBP closed 1.65 and 1.59 percent higher. "Overall sentiments of the market remains positive and further bull-run from these levels is expected," opined Khan. Future trade slid to 28.8 million contracts compared to 34.4 million of last session.