Pakistan Stock Exchange witnessed highly volatile session with the KSE-100 index moving between 45,301.38 points intra-day high and 44,549.45 points intra-day low level.
Late buying mainly by local investors in selective stocks supported the index to close in positive at 45,222.15 points, with a net gain of 399.03 points on Friday. The foreigners however remained net sellers of equities worth $0.9 million.
Trading activities remained low as daily trading volume decreased to 132.366 million shares as compared to 146.620 million shares traded on Thursday. Total market capitalization Rs 72 billion to Rs 9.279 trillion. Out of total 329 active scrips, 237 closed in positive and only 79 in negative while the value of 13 stocks remained unchanged.
TRG Pak was the volume leader with 15.822 million shares and gained Rs 1.58 to close at Rs 35.93 followed by Pak Elektron that inched up by Rs 0.25 to close at Rs 96.00 with 9.498 million shares. Bank of Punjab closed at Rs 11.55, up Rs 0.38 with 9.070 million shares. Service Industries and Millat Tractors were the top gainers increasing by Rs 45.50 and Rs 33.90 respectively to close at Rs 1340.50 and Rs 1304.67 while Nestle Pakistan and Wyeth Pak were the top losers declining by Rs 100.00 and Rs 29.99 respectively to close at Rs 10300.00 and Rs 2100.00.
Arhum Ghous at JS Global Capital said the market remained volatile throughout the day, making an intraday low of minus 274 points and high of plus 469 points to finally close at 45,222, up 399 points. Sentiments turned positive in the eleventh hour as buyers jumped in to cherry pick value stocks. Major contribution to the index came from MTL (up 2.67 percent), ENGRO (up 3.42 percent) and ATRL (up 2.55 percent) as they cumulatively contributed plus 25 points to the index. On the other hand, major laggards were HCAR (down 2.35 percent), INDU (down 0.42 percent) and UBL (down 2.69 percent) as they cumulatively contributed 71 points to the index. PPL in the E&P sector gained (up 3.95 percent) on back of material information with respect to new wellhead gas pricing of Sui gas field. The determined price is now equivalent to 55 percent of the natural gas price under the Petroleum Exploration & Production Policy 2012 and effective retroactively as of June 1, 2015. Steel sector gained on account of noise in the market that CRC prices have been increased, where DSL (up 4.53 percent), ASTL (up 3.27 percent), INIL (up 3.26 percent) and ASL (up 3.44 percent) were the major gainers of the sector.
Ahsan Mehanti at Arif Habib Corporation said that stocks showed recovery led by auto, oil and cement scrips amid speculation ahead of financial results due next week. Late session support witnessed in scrips across the board on fears wane over rupee depreciation and renewed foreign inflows. He said that speculations ahead of annual payouts in blue chip oil, cement stocks and ADB approval on $6 billion projects favoring steel and cement stocks played a catalyst role in bullish close.