Pakistan Stock Exchange Thursday witnessed a mixed trend due to investors'' cautious stance over the prevailing political situation in the country. BRIndex100 managed to close in positive at 4,387.74 points, up 13.89 points or 0.32 percent. BRIndex100 touched an intraday high of 4,422.49 points and an intraday low of 4,327.15 points. The volumes stood at 133.238 million shares.
BRIndex30 gained 79.42 points or 0.36 percent to close at 21,979.59 points with a total volume of 85.978 million shares. The benchmark KSE-100 index closed at 40,468.49 points, up 7.49 points or 0.02 percent. Trading activity remained low as daily volumes on the ready counter decreased to 150.272 million shares as compared to 192.002 million shares traded Wednesday.
Foreign investors remained net buyers of shares worth $2.9 million. The market capitalization increased by Rs 4 billion to Rs 8.502 trillion. Out of total 405 active scrips, 221 closed in negative, 165 in positive while the value of 19 stocks remained unchanged. TRG Pak was the volume leader with 12.017 million shares. It gained Rs 0.33 to close at Rs 34.20 followed by Chakwal Spinning that lost Re 1.00 to close at Rs 10.92 with 7.513 million shares. Sanofi-Aventis and Nestle Pakistan were the top gainers with Rs 77.61 and Rs 70.16, respectively to close at Rs 1,782.00 and Rs 12,999.83. Bata Pak and Island Textile were the top losers with Rs 50.00 and Rs 19.31, respectively to close at Rs 2,900.00 and Rs 943.20.
BR Commercial Banks Index closed at 7,872.48 points, up 7.12 points or 0.09 percent with total turnover of 12.699 million shares. BR Cement Index gained 16.79 points or 0.32 percent to close at 5,282.03 points with 19.122 million shares. BR Oil and Gas Index lost 13.31 points or 0.28 percent to close at 4,713.42 points with total turnover of 14.868 million shares.
BR Tech. & Comm. Index closed at 1,168.86 points, up 1.83 points or 0.16 percent with 21.810 million shares. BR Power Generation and Distribution Index lost 15.88 points or 0.23 percent to close at 6,886.75 points with total turnover of 8.290 million shares.
An analyst at Arif Habib Limited said that the market continued to display a choppy trend with the KSE-100 index closing at 40,468, up by 7 points. In particular, the market exhibited support at 40,000 points. Market movement was led by Fertilizer (up 32 points), Textile Composite (up 18 points), Automobile Assembler (up 16 points), Commercial Banks (up 15 points) and Cement (up 13 points). However, Oil & Gas Marketing Companies steered negativity at the bourse contributing minus 33 points while Pharmaceuticals and Engineering sectors wiped away minus 22 and minus 16 points from the index, respectively. Top positive contributing scrips were DGKC (plus 21 points), ENGRO (plus 20 points), PPL (plus 16 points), NML (plus 15 points) and MCB (plus 14 points) while scrips that topped the laggards list include SNGP (minus 27 points), SEARL (minus 17 points) and HUBC (minus 14 points).