Pakistan Stock Exchange Tuesday witnessed a bullish trend on the first day of new-year on the back of healthy buying in various sectors. BRIndex100 gained 123.75 points or 3.23 percent to close at 3,954.23 points. BRIndex100 touched intraday high of 3,956.12 and intraday low of 3,830.42 points. Volumes stood at 89.105 million shares.
BRIndex30 increased by 600.3 points or 2.95 percent to close at 20,937.43 points with a turnover of 63.859 million shares.
The KSE-100 index surged by 929.10 points or 2.51 percent to close at 37,995.77 points. Trading activity however remained low as daily volumes decreased to 96.662 million shares as compared to 226.060 million shares traded Monday.
The market capitalization increased by Rs 160 billion to Rs 7.852 trillion. Out of total 339 active scrips, 233 closed in positive, only 88 in negative while the value of 18 stocks remained unchanged.
Pak Elektron was the volume leader with 11.992 million shares. It increased by Rs 1.16 to close at Rs 26.06 followed by TRG Pak that gained Rs 1.11 to close at Rs 23.41 with 6.306 million shares. Nestle Pakistan and Pak Tobacco were the top gainers with Rs 400.00 and Rs 99.00, respectively to close at Rs 9,400.00 and Rs 2,999.00. Colgate Palmolive and Abbott Lab were the top losers with Rs 80.01 and Rs 16.97, respectively to close at Rs 2,210.00 and Rs 614.08.
BR Commercial Banks Index gained 120.26 points or 1.51 percent to close at 8,092.66 points with total turnover of 17.365 million shares.
BR Cement Index increased by 151.15 points or 3.79 percent to close at 4,137.83 points with 10.060 million shares.
BR Oil and Gas Index surged by 155.77 points or 3.53 percent to close at 4,571.81 points with 3.761 million shares.
BR Tech. & Comm. Index inched up by 23.63 points or 2.49 percent to close at 973.48 points with 9.404 million shares.
BR Power Generation and Distribution Index closed at 6,044.78 points, up 78.77 points or 1.32 percent with 5.774 million shares.
An analyst at Arif Habib Limited said that the first day of the CY19 was greeted by almost 1,000 points increase in the index. The market went up by 980 points, capping many blue chips on the way up including UBL, LUCK, OGDC, etc. At the start, the market should signs of nervousness but as the day progressed the index kept rising and prices started climbing with little volume.
Insurance sector, which had been a net seller in the past couple of sessions, found apparently absent that gave confidence to the investors to take confident bets. The news of China lending another $2 billion to Pakistan for reserve management also gave boost to the market.
Sectors contributing to the index include E&P (up 230 points), Banks (up 214 points), Fertilizer (up 146 points), Cement (up 115 points) and O&GMCs (up 68 points).
Stocks that contributed positively include ENGRO (up 90 points), OGDC (up 89 points), PPL (up 69 points), UBL (up 64 points) and LUCK (up 60 points). Stocks that contributed negatively include MEBL (down 19 points), MTL (down 19 points), COLG (down 10 points), ABOT (down 9 points) and SHEL (down 7 points).