A bullish trend continued on Pakistan Stock Exchange on the back of healthy buying in various sectors. BRIndex100 gained 109.46 points or 2.54 percent to close at 4,421.62 points on Monday. BRIndex100 touched intraday high of 4,433.49 and intraday low of 4,312.16 points. Volumes stood at 430.982 million shares.
BRIndex30 increased by 648.13 points or 2.85 percent to close at 23,359.48 points with a turnover of 336.334 million shares. The benchmark KSE-100 index surged by 897.31 points or 2.21 percent. It closed at 41,453.76 points. Trading activity also further improved as daily volumes on the ready counter increased to 461.069 million shares as compared to 368.349 million shares traded Friday.
Foreign investors remained net sellers of shares worth $9.1 million. The market capitalization increased by Rs 139 billion to Rs 8.306 trillion. Out of total 410 active scrips, 274 closed in positive, 121 in negative while the value of 15 stocks remained unchanged.
Bank of Punjab was the volume leader with 63.367 million shares. It gained Re 0.96 to close at Rs 13.08 followed by K-Electric that inched up by Re 0.28 to close at Rs 6.27 with 44.137 million shares. Wyeth Pak and Nestle Pakistan were the top gainers with Rs 62.88 and Rs 55.00 respectively to close at Rs 1320.63 and Rs 9500.00 while Colgate Palmolive and Service Industries were the top losers declining by Rs 101.00 and Rs 25.69 respectively to close at Rs 2352.00 and Rs 716.20.
BR Commercial Banks Index surged by 252.13 points or 3.03 percent to close at 8,573.55 points with total turnover of 80.279 million shares. BR Cement Index increased by 208.85 points or 4.73 percent to close at 4,623.13 points with 54.170 million shares.
BR Oil and Gas Index gained 88.99 points or 1.65 percent to close at 5,470.96 points with 24.215 million shares. BR Tech. & Comm. Index gained inched up 10.76 points or 0.91 percent to close at 1,191.67 points with 22.341 million shares. BR Power Generation and Distribution Index closed at 6,277.30 points, up 205.93 points or 3.39 percent with 48.154 million shares.
An analyst at Topline Securities said investors sentiments remained bullish ahead of Prime Minister Imran Khan''s visit to China (expected by the end of this week) for another support package. Moreover, weekend news that Pakistan has asked UAE to provide deferred payment facility for oil import (a package of up to US$6bn as per media outlets), kept the momentum high. In last 4 trading sessions, market gained 9.6 percent (3,739 points), which is nearly a 9-Year consecutive 4 session high (in percentage terms). Consequently, Pakistan market traded 461mn volumes (up 25 percent), the highest since 24 May, 2017 just before the country was officially included in the MSCI EM-Index. Value reached $119 million, up 13 percent, highest since January 2018.
Government on Saturday asked cement manufacturers to gear up for meeting an upsurge in demand from the construction sector, this greatly increased interest in LUCK (up 5 percent), DGKC (up 5 percent), FCCL (up 4.97 percent) and MLCF (up 4.98 percent) as the cement sector added 142 points to the index.