Bullish trend persisted on Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) on the back of healthy buying mainly by local investors and institutions and the benchmark KSE-100 index once again crossed 49,000 psychological level on Thursday. At the end of the session, the index closed at the level of 49,013.82 points with an increase of 371.61 points.
The foreign investors however remained net sellers of shares and withdrew $7.4 million from Pakistan stock market. Trading activities also improved as the daily trading volumes on ready counter increased to 456.497 million shares as compared to 330.624 million shares traded on Wednesday. Total market capitalisation increased by Rs 62 billion to Rs 9.829 trillion. Out of total 421 active scrips, 289 closed in positive and 116 in negative while the value of 16 stocks remained unchanged.
Bank of Punjab was the volume leader with 32.774 million shares and gained Rs 0.13 to close at Rs 17.91 followed by K-Electric that inched up by Rs 0.03 to close at Rs 9.45 with 29.852 million shares. Dost Steels increased by Rs 0.62 to close at Rs 14.12 with 22.460 million shares.
Wyeth Pak and Ghandhara Industries were the top gainers increasing by Rs 83.50 and Rs 53.85 respectively to close at Rs 4832.50 and Rs 1131.63 while Bata Pak and Sanofi-Aventis were the top losers declining by Rs 210.10 and Rs 125.61 respectively to close at Rs 3992.20 and Rs 2596.39.
Nabeel Haroon at JS Global Capital said that Positivity prevailed in the market as the index gained 372 points to close at 49,014 level. INIL, ISL and ASL in the steel sector gained to close on their respective upper circuits on the back of the news that NTC has imposed definitive anti-dumping duties against dumped imports of cold rolled coils/sheets in the range of 13-19 percent. Power Cement in the cement sector increased by 5.22 percent on the back of announcement that the company intends to increase production capacity up to 3.37 million tons annually by start of CY19 with a fresh investment of around Rs 25 billion. Overall investor interest was seen in the Cement sector, as the sector gained to close 1.3 percent higher than its previous day close. Textile sector gained as investors weighed in the impact of textile package on the companies' bottom line in the sector going forward.
Ahsan Mehanti at Arif Habib Corporation said that stocks showed recovery led by blue chip autos, engineering and cement scrips on speculations ahead of financial results. Oil stocks remained in pressure on weak global crude prices and dismal annual earnings of the PPL. Concerns for foreign outflows, global equities selloff and $3.5 billion dismal current account deficit data for July-December 2016 invited intra-day profit taking. He said investor speculations in second and third tier value stocks in the late session rally of the earnings season played a catalyst role in positive close.
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