Index gains 163 points

A bullish trend was witnessed at the Karachi share market on Tuesday on the back of healthy buying by local investors mainly in cement and banking sector stocks, analysts said. The benchmark KSE-100 index surged by 163.00 points and closed at the level of 13,449.73 points.
After positive opening the investors took cautious stance and opted for profit taking on available margins due to prevailing law and order situation in the city and the index dropped into negative zone at 13,270.49 points intra-day low level. However, the local investors entered the market and took fresh positions mainly in cement and banking sector stocks that supported the index to recover its intra-day losses and to hit 13,463.59 points intra-day high level.
Due to investors'' aggressive participation, trading activities improved significantly as the daily volumes increased to 352.783 million shares as compared to 278.010 million shares traded on Monday. Total market capitalisation increased by Rs 43 billion to Rs 3.453 trillion. Of the total 375 active stocks, 204 closed in positive and 113 in negative while the value of 58 stocks remained unchanged.
WorldCall Telecom was the volume leader with 27.663 million shares and gained Re 0.22 to close at Rs 3.30. Azgard Nine increased by Re 1.00 to close at Rs 9.87 with 26.445 million shares. Investors interest was seen in cement sector as Fauji Cement, Lafarge Pakistan and DG Khan Cement surged by Re 0.25, Re 0.19 and Rs 1.59 to close at Rs 5.55, Rs 3.97 and Rs 33.69 with 24.275 million shares, 16.545 million shares and 14.753 million shares respectively.
In the banking sector, NIB Bank lost Re 0.02 to close at Rs 2.80 with 17.260 million shares while Bank Al Falah and SilkBank gained Re 0.60 and Re 0.07 to close at Rs 15.18 and Rs 2.92 with 10.678 million shares and 10.009 million shares respectively. Japan Power inched up by Re 0.36 to close at Rs 2.07 with 12.978 million shares. TRG Pakistan lost Re 0.23 to close at Rs 4.18 with 9.753 million shares.
Nestle Pak and Indus Dyeing were the highest gainers increasing by Rs 114.58 and Rs 18.43 to close at Rs 4476.41 and Rs 411.85 respectively while Colgate Palmolive and Unilever Pak were the worst losers declining by Rs 45.13 and Rs 19.00 respectively. Muhammad Imran at Arif Habib Limited said that mainly local investors remained active and took fresh positions aggressively mainly in cement and banking sector stocks on expectations of good results of both the sector stocks.
The local investors'' participation supported the index to register healthy gains. The rumours regarding Finance Minister''s expected visit to Karachi Stock Exchange on Thursday or Friday to finalise Capital Gains Tax related matters also invited fresh buying and encouraged the local investors to take fresh positions.