Pakistan Stock Exchange Monday witnessed a bullish trend on the back of healthy buying in various sectors. BRIndex100 gained 47.83 points or 1.16 percent to close at 4,175.24 points. BRIndex100 touched intraday high of 4,187.09 and intraday low of 4,127.27 points. Volumes stood at 107.011 million shares.
BRIndex30 increased by 266.49 points or 1.22 percent to close at 22.111 million shares with a turnover of 75.833 million shares. The KSE-100 index rose by 363.47 points or 0.93 percent to close at 39,412.55 points. Trading activity however remained low as daily volumes decreased to 115.326 million shares as compared to 123.577 million shares traded Friday.
The market capitalization increased by Rs 56 billion to Rs 7.933 trillion. Out of total 356 active scrips, 241 closed in positive, only 93 in negative while the value of 22 stocks remained unchanged.
Pak Elektron was the volume leader with 13.618 million shares. It gained Re 0.81 to close at Rs 28.41 followed by K-Electric that inched up by Re 0.11 to close at Rs 6.42 with 10.840 million shares. Sanofi-Aventis and Service Ind Limited were the top gainers with Rs 40.02 and Rs 24.35, respectively to close at Rs 859.00 and Rs 815.00. Sapphire Textile and Millat Tractors were the top losers with Rs 43.78 and Rs 20.24, respectively to close at Rs 1,300.23 and Rs 774.85.
BR Commercial Banks Index increased by 76.47 points or 0.92 percent to close at 8,426.30 points with total turnover of 8.977 million shares.
BR Cement Index surged by 80.69 points or 1.94 percent to close at 4,240.38 points with 8.403 million shares. BR Oil and Gas Index inched up by 10.34 points or 0.21 percent to close at 4,858.59 points with 7.658 million shares.
BR Tech. & Comm. Index gained 28.08 points or 2.87 percent to close at 1,005.85 points with 14.616 million shares.
BR Power Generation and Distribution Index closed at 6,246.04 points, up 91.03 points or 1.48 percent with 11.795 million shares.
"With the 'mini-budget' expected to focus on ensuring ease of doing business and reducing input cost for export oriented sectors, the KSE-100 Index rose 363 points, 0.93 percent," an analyst at Topline Securities said.
He said the 3rd budget of FY19 is also expected to reduce/eliminate advance tax of 0.2 percent on brokers and to rationalize group taxation system, which improved investor sentiments.
Favorable winds continued in GIDC beneficiaries (FFC and FFBL) and Pharmaceutical Scrips for the second day, with former due to sizeable one time and recurring gains post resolution (50 percent waiver) of this matter and latter due to Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan's (DRAP) notification about the increase of up to 15 percent in the price of medicines across the country.
Following these developments, GLAXO, ABOT, SEARL, AGP, FFC and FFBL closed in range of 3-5 percent.
Investor preferred to stay on the sideline due to lack of clarity on economic policies of Govt., where participation in terms of volumes declined by 7 percent to 115 million shares, while traded value decreased by 14 percent to $39 million.