Pakistan Stock Exchange remained bullish ahead of MSCI announcement that it will upgrade Pakistan to Emerging Market Index from Frontier. The E&P sector led the gains. The benchmark KSE-100 index crossed 52,000 psychological level Monday. The index hit 52,601.94 points intra-day high, up 950.03 points. However, it could not sustain this level due to profit-taking in select stocks at the fag end. The index closed at a new high of 52,387.87 points with healthy increase of 636.96 points.
Buying was seen mainly by local investors and institutions. However, foreign investors remained net sellers of shares worth $1.8 million. Trading activity further improved as daily trading volumes on the ready counter increased to 352.804 million shares as compared to 346.705 million shares traded on previous session. The market capitalization increased by Rs 110 billion to Rs 10.289 trillion. Out of total 405 active scrips, 213 closed in positive, 177 in negative while the value of 15 stocks remained unchanged.
Engro Polymer was the volume leader with 35.905 million shares. It gained Rs 0.67 to close at Rs 31.18 followed by Dost Steel that increased by Rs 1.00 to close at Rs 14.20 with 19.535 million shares. Bank of Punjab inched up by Rs 0.05 to close at Rs 13.82 with 12.034 million shares.
Pak Tobacco and National Refinery were the top gainers with Rs 41.40 and Rs 27.58 respectively to close at Rs 1541.40 and Rs 841.51 while Unilever Foods and Wyeth Pak were the top losers declining by Rs 250.00 and Rs 38.20 respectively to close at Rs 6150.00 and Rs 2334.60. Arhum Ghous at JS Global Capital said that the market continued its bullish momentum. Major index movers were OGDC (up 4.83 percent), MCB (up 3.19 percent), PPL (up 3.39 percent), POL (up 5.0 percent) and ENGRO (up 2.08 percent) as they cumulatively contributed 318 points to the index. The E&P sector led the gains as they cumulatively contributed 221 points to the index. Crude oil prices reached to the highest level in around two weeks after Saudi Arabia and Russia agreed to extend oil output cuts for nine months ahead. POL and OGDC both came out as winners of the aforementioned sector. Investor interest was seen in the fertiliser sector on the news that the federal government is likely to increase the urea export quota by 100 percent to 6 million tons. FFC (up 3.29 percent) and FATIMA (up 1.97 percent) were the major gainers of the aforementioned sector.
An analyst at Topline Securities said that as MSCI's 'May 2017 Semi-Annual Index' review edges nearer, Pakistan market continues its euphoric run and pushed KSE-100 index to new record level of 52,387 points. Three of the six potential MSCI constituents OGDC, MCB and ENGRO dominated the surge with cumulative contribution of 212.26 points to the index. Oil price jumped 3.3 percent to $49.5/bbl as Saudi Arabia and Russia extended production cut until Mar 2018, which led POL and PPL to crawl up 2-3 percent (106 points). Potential MSCI small cap stocks FCCL and MLCF were up 2.3 percent and 1.8 percent, respectively.