Pakistan Stock Exchange Wednesday witnessed a positive trend on the back of fresh buying in various sectors on available attractive levels. BRIndex100 gained 35.68 points or 0.77 percent to close at 4,662.40 points. BRIndex100 touched intraday high of 4,667.94 and intraday low of 4,625.29 points. Volumes stood at 86.946 million shares.
BRIndex30 surged by 162.85 points or 0.71 percent to close at 23,062.33 points with a turnover of 69.691 million shares. The benchmark KSE-100 index increased by 278.60 points to close at 43,507.50 points. Trading activity however remained low as daily volumes on the ready counter decreased to 111.897 million shares as compared to 137.787 million shares traded Tuesday.
The market capitalization increased by Rs 34 billion to Rs 8.938 trillion. Out of total 332 active scrips, 197 closed in positive, 113 in negative while the value of 22 stocks remained unchanged.
Bank of Punjab was the volume leader with 10.053 million shares. It gained Re 0.29 to close at Rs 13.15 followed by Meezan Bank that increased by Rs 3.90 to close at Rs 81.98 with 7.638 million shares. Unilever Foods and Island Textile were the top gainers with Rs 314.00 and Rs 51.49, respectively to close at Rs 8,099.00 and Rs 1,119.99. Rafhan Maize and Colgate Palmolive were the top losers with Rs 200.00 and Rs 174.90, respectively to close at Rs 7,998.00 and Rs 3,323.06.
BR Commercial Banks Index surged by 110.39 points or 1.24 percent to close at 9,018.91 points with total turnover of 25.063 million shares. BR Cement Index lost 19.94 points or 0.4 percent to close at 4,910.14 points with 10.681 million shares. BR Oil and Gas Index increased by 48.45 points or 0.88 percent to close at 5,540.78 points with 4.469 million shares.
BR Tech. & Comm. Index closed at 1,169.26 points, up 24.41 points or 2.13 percent with 9.505 million shares. BR Power Generation and Distribution Index decreased by 56.44 points or 0.91 percent to close at 6,114.85 points with 7.582 million shares. An analyst at Arif Habib Limited said that the market had a slow start with slight decline, but the sentiment recovered soon and SC''s nod on Amnesty helped garner interest from investors. Transactions of particular interest were in Meezan Bank, which saw buying interesting from Insurance Sector and capitalized by Mutual Funds. Another notable scrip capturing interest of investors was DGKC, which went down to 118 in early trading but recovered and healthy buying activity was observed at 120. Near end of session, seller was seen divesting below 118 and pushed the rate down to 115.
Sectors contributing to this increase include Banks (up 84 points), E&P (up 65 points), Fertilizer (up 59 points), O&GMCs (up 55 points), Engineering (up 29 points). Scripts that contributed positively include POL (up 46 points), PSO (up 25 points), OGDC (up 23 points), FFC (up 22 points) and UBL (up 18pts). Stocks that contributed negatively include HUBC (down 16 points), DGKC (down 4 points), KEL (down 4 points), PPL (down 4 points) and APL (down 2 points).