A bullish trend continued on Pakistan Stock Exchange on the back of healthy buying by local and foreign investors. BRIndex100 gained 26.17 points or 0.56 percent to close at 4,695.24 points Thursday. BRIndex100 touched intraday high of 4,750.23 and intraday low of 4,645.86 points. Volumes stood at 243.084 million shares.
BRIndex30 increased by 219.9 points or 0.92 percent to 24,116.10 points with a turnover of 169.415 million shares. The benchmark KSE-100 index surged by 221.91 points to 43,580.88 points. Trading activity improved significantly as daily volumes increased to 268.457 million shares as compared to 151.337 million shares traded Wednesday.
Foreign investors remained net buyers of shares worth $4.7 million. The market capitalization increased by Rs 33 billion to Rs 8.987 trillion. Out of total 383 active scrips, 222 closed in positive, 152 in negative while the value of 9 stocks remained unchanged. TRG Pak was the volume leader with 17.579 million shares. However, it lost Re 0.30 to close at Rs 31.93 followed by Lotte Chemical that gained Re 0.48 to close at Rs 8.62 with 15.426 million shares. Sanofi-Aventis and Hinopak Motor were the top gainers with Rs 70.45 and Rs 57.22, respectively to close at Rs 1,479.56 and Rs 1,201.72. Shield Corp and National Refinery were the top losers with Rs 22.93 and Rs 22.84, respectively to close at Rs 435.69 and Rs 434.13.
BR Commercial Banks Index gained 23.89 points or 0.27 percent to close at 8,846.43 points with total turnover of 25.635 million shares. BR Cement Index increased by 56.36 points or 0.99 percent to close at 5,722.71 points with 30.003 million shares.
BR Oil and Gas Index inched up by 27.27 points or 0.52 percent to close at 5,312.13 with 17.835 million shares. BR Tech. & Comm. Index lost 2.8 points or 0.25 percent to close at 1,137.33 points with 31.726 million shares. BR Power Generation and Distribution Index closed at 6,318.89 points, up 51.2 points or 0.82 percent with 9.778 million shares.
Maaz Mulla at JS Global Capital said Pakistani equities opened on a positive note after Wednesday''s political sit-in, making an intraday high of up 645 points. However, bears entered and ruled the local bourse thereafter, resulting in the index making an intraday low of minus 166 points to close at 43,581 level, up 222 points.
Major index contributors were ENGRO (up 2.77 percent), HBL (up 1.38 percent), MCB (up 0.72 percent) and HUBC (up 1.03 percent), cumulatively contributing plus 119 points to the index. On the flipside, major laggards were NML (down 2.31 percent), NRL (down 5.0 percent) and ATRL (down 3.16 percent).
Steel sector continued to perform well as MUGHAL (up 5.0 percent), ASTL (up 3.29 percent), INIL (up 1.09 percent) and CSAP (up 0.79 percent) closed higher than their previous day''s close. Mixed sentiments were witnessed in the banking sector, where HBL (up 1.38 percent), UBL (up 0.07 percent) and MCB (up 0.72 percent) closed higher, whereas NBP (down 0.44 percent), BAHL (down 0.51 percent) and BAFL (down 0.53 percent) closed lower.