BRIndex100 turns positive

Fresh buying by local and foreign investors supported Pakistan Stock Exchange to close in positive territory Tuesday. BRIndex100 gained 2.53 points or 0.05 percent to close at 4,954.78 points. BRIndex100 touched intraday high of 4,969.05 and intraday low of 4,919.42 points. Volumes stood at 118.171 million shares.
BRIndex30 lost 11.35 points or 0.04 percent to close at 25,281.24 points with a turnover of 74.543 million shares. The benchmark KSE-100 index increased by 119.49 points to 45,801.73 points. Daily trading volumes stood at 147.469 million shares as compared to 144.846 million shares.
Foreign investors remained net buyers of shares worth $0.8 million. The market capitalization increased by Rs 31 billion to Rs 9.389 trillion. Out of total 365 active scrips, 187 closed in positive, 157 in negative while the value of 21 stocks remained unchanged. Engro Polymer was the volume leader with 12.869 million shares. It gained Rs 1.04 to close at Rs 39.41 followed by Unity Foods that lost Re 0.18 to close at Rs 27.83 with 10.616 million shares.
Colgate Palmolive and Nestle Pakistan were the top gainers with Rs 150.99 and Rs 89.00, respectively to close at Rs 3,184.99 and Rs 12,600.00. Island Textile and Indus Dying were the top losers declining by Rs 45.00 and Rs 26.06, respectively to close at Rs 855.00 and Rs 495.37. BR Commercial Banks Index decreased by 22.27 points or 0.24 percent to close at 9,270.29 points with total turnover of 10.849 million shares.
BR Cement Index increased by 71.62 points or 1.18 percent to close at 6,138.62 points with 19.163 million shares. BR Oil and Gas Index lost 10.76 points or 0.2 percent to close at 5,463.71 points with 5.858 million shares. BR Tech. & Comm. Index inched up by 7.3 points or 0.6 percent to close at 1,229.47 points with 4.251 million shares.
BR Power Generation and Distribution Index closed at 6,923.95 points, up 12.28 points or 0.18 percent with 7.127 million shares. An analyst at Topline Securities said that Pakistan equities turned positive after declining in three straight sessions as the investors were excited about upcoming results where Engro Polymers (EPCL) and Lotchem (LOTCHEM) are likely to post healthy growth in their earnings owing to uptick in their margins (both stocks cumulatively generated trading volumes of 21 million shares), government was moving ahead to get syndicated financing of $450 million and restoration of investors'' sentiments investors in cement stocks as market talks about further rise in cement prices.
Among sectors, Cement sector added 51 points to index, followed by Chemicals (29 points) and Pharmaceutical (23 points). Top 5 scrips including LUCK (up 1.9 percent), BAHL (up 2.1 percent), COLG (up 5.0 percent), PAKT (up 3.1 percent) and NESTLE (up 0.7 percent) added 99 points to the index whereas stocks including HBL (down 1.0 percent), OGDC (down 1.5 percent), UBL (down 1.0 percent), FFBL (down 5.0 percent) and NRL (down 3.1 percent) withheld 104 points from the index gain.