KARACHI: Pakistan Stock Exchange Thursday witnessed a bullish trend on the back of healthy buying, mainly by local investors and institutions.

BRIndex100 gained 47.88 points or 1.06 percent to close at 4,569.28 points. BRIndex100 hit intraday high of 4,594.67 and intraday low of 4,521.45 points. Volumes stood at 494.057 million shares.

BRIndex30 increased by 322.92 points or 1.43 percent to close at 22,917.01 points with a turnover of 307.449 million shares.

The KSE-100 Index surged by 329.07 points or 0.76 percent to close at 43,416.77 points. Trading activity also improved as daily volumes on the ready counter increased to 570.583 million shares as compared to 378.938 million shares traded Wednesday.

Foreign investors however remained net sellers of shares worth $13.167 million shares. The market capitalization increased by Rs 50 billion to Rs 7.949 trillion. Out of total 402 active scrips, 232 closed in positive and 150 in negative while the value of 20 stocks remained unchanged.

Unity Foods was the volume leader with 46.887 million shares and increased by Rs 1.76 to close at Rs 28.51 followed by TRG Pak that surged by Rs 5.47 to close at Rs 78.42 with 37.299 million shares. Unilever Foods and Rafhan Maize were the top gainers increasing by Rs 945.00 and Rs 348.00 respectively to close at Rs 13545.00 and Rs 9350.00 while Nestle Pakistan and Gillette Pak were the top losers declining by Rs 37.50 and Rs 37.17 respectively to close at Rs 6600.00 and Rs 526.08.

BR Automobile Assembler Index increased by 115.65 points or 1.37 percent to close at 8,558.03 points with total turnover of 8.416 million shares.

BR Cement Index surged by 227.19 points or 3.74 percent to close at 6,302.30 points with 95.410 million shares.

BR Commercial Banks Index gained 25.4 points or 0.29 percent to close at 8,929.67 points with 24.299 million shares.

BR Power Generation and Distribution Index inched up by 36.75 points or 0.74 percent to close at 4,998.97 points with 18.080 million shares.

BR Oil and Gas Index added 3.9 points or 0.1 percent to close at 3,997.84 points with 29.800 million shares.

BR Tech. & Comm. Index closed at 2,517.87 points, up 108.78 points or 4.52 percent with 73.382 million shares.

“Last day of the rollover week ended with fanfare adding a total of 544 points during the session and ending plus 329 points. On a weekly basis, the Index gained 450 points after losing 1,200 points in the first two sessions of the week.

Overnight jump in international crude oil prices helped E&P stocks staged decent recovery, however, profit booking kept the stock price increase in check. Cement sector performed comparatively better on the back of healthy dispatches, which was further aided by consistent buying interest in banking sector stocks from the local investors.

Sectors contributing to the performance include Cement (up 158 points), Technology (up 91 points), Banks (up 23 points), Vanaspati (up 22 points), Fertilizer (down 16 points) and Pharma (down 11 points).

Stocks that contributed positively to the index include TRG (up 65 points), LUCK (up 65 points), CHCC (up 28 points), SYS (up 25 points) and UNITY (up 22 points). Stocks that contributed negatively included MEBL (down 20 points), ENGRO (down 10 points), PSO (down 7 points), FFC (down 6 points) and DAWH (down 4 points).

Copyright Business Recorder, 2020