Hefty short covering, mainly in E&P stocks, on Tuesday supported the KSE-100 index to register healthy gains of 160.16 points to close at 12,326.14 points. The market opened on a strong positive note and the index hit 12,350.89 points intra-day high level on the back of active participation of local investors. However, the foreign investors were sellers of shares worth $1.43 million.
Trading improved and the volume at ready counter increased to 68.175 million shares as compared to 51.083 million shares traded on Monday. Market capitalisation increased by Rs 40 billion to Rs 3.254 trillion. Of 344 active stocks, 170 closed in positive and 79 in negative, while the values of 95 scrips remained unchanged.
SilkBank was the volume leader with 10.158 million shares and gained Re 0.13 to close at Rs 2.98. Engro Corp lost Re 0.96 to close at Rs 167.94 with 6.864 million shares. Lotte Pakistan PTA inched up by Re 0.30 to close at Rs 14.52 with 3.930 million shares. Pace (Pak) decreased by Re 0.10 to close at Rs 2.28 with 3.618 million shares.
Jahangir Siddiqui Co gained Re 0.20 to close at Rs 6.90 with 2.726 million shares. Thatta Cement (R) declined by Re 0.93 to close at Re 0.04 with 2.466 million shares. Fauji Fertiliser surged by Rs 4.16 to close at Rs 146.05 with 2.440 million shares. BoP inched up by Re 0.03 to close at Rs 6.58 with 2.299 million shares. Habib Metropolitan Bank gained Re 0.96 to close at Rs 19.45 with 2.272 million shares.
POL surged by Rs 11.53 to close at Rs 358.87 with 2.082 million shares. Nestle Pakistan and Unilever Pak were the highest gainers increasing by Rs 200.03 and Rs 100.94 to close at Rs 4200.64 and Rs 5310.32 respectively, while Shield Corporation and Liberty Mills were the worst losers declining by Rs 4.23 and Rs 3.35 to close at Rs 80.46 and Rs 63.65 respectively.
Hasnain Asghar Ali at Aziz Fidahusein Co said that the hefty short covering in oil and gas exploration stocks, and placement of proceeds from Engro towards other dividend yielders in fertiliser sector, along with low volume influx in illiquid stocks did allow the benchmark to register substantial gains. However, despite being the volume leader, Engro failed to stage recovery on grounds of technical short covering. He said that the below-expectation announcement by PPL invited volumetric sell-off, forcing the stock to wipe off early gains and enter the red zone, while air-pocket opening in various frontline speculative stocks kept the active participants in search of dips.