KARACHI: Despite foreign selling, Pakistan Stock Exchange Wednesday witnessed a bullish trend and closed on strong positive note with healthy gains on the back of across-the-board aggressive buying, mainly by local investors coupled with institutional support due to correction in international oil prices and better corporate results.
The market opened on strong positive note and remained in the green zone throughout the session as investors aggressively took fresh positions in almost all sectors. The benchmark KSE-100 Index surged by 391.80 points or 85 percent and once again crossed 46,000 crucial level to close at 46,339.76 points. Trading activity also improved as daily volumes on the ready counter increased to 243.148 million shares as compared to 187.377 million shares traded Tuesday.
BRIndex100 gained 40.56 points or 0.86 percent to close at 4,749.49 points with a turnover of 203.048 million shares.
BRIndex30 increased by 228.53 points or 1.26 percent to close at 18,376.65 points with total daily trading volumes of 126.453 million shares.
Foreign investors however remained on selling side and withdrew $1.582 million from local equity market. Total market capitalization increased by Rs 62 billion to Rs 7.905 trillion. Out of total 368 active scrips, 242 closed in positive and 103 in negative while the value of 23 stocks remained unchanged.
Treet Corp was the volume leader with 16.813 million shares and increased by Rs 1.50 to close at Rs 41.53 followed by K-Electric that closed at Rs 3.38, up Rs 0.03 with 13.780 million shares.
Rafhan Maize and Bata Pak were the top gainers increasing by Rs 650.00 and Rs 99.80 respectively to close at Rs 10400.00 and Rs 2149.80 while Sapphire Textile and Allawasaya Textile were the top losers declining by Rs 83.17 and Rs 40.95 respectively to close at Rs 1025.83 and Rs 2325.11.
An analyst at Arif Habib Limited said that bullish momentum was recorded as Brent and WTI dropped from its seven-year high. Oil slid more than 2.0 percent from recent seven-year highs as the resumption of indirect talks between the United States and Iran could revive an international nuclear agreement and allow more oil exports from the OPEC producer.
Cement sector stayed under pressure due to higher international coal prices. In the banking sector, BAHL remained in the limelight as it announced tremendous financial result beating market expectations. Physiological level of 46,000 was finally digested by the investors as across the board buying was observed in the last trading hour, which led the index to close in the green zone.
Sectors contributing to the performance include Banks (up 123.7 points), Fertilizer (up 73.6 points), E&P (up 42.6 points), Power (up 25.6 points) and Cement (up 21.5 points).
BR Automobile Assembler Index gained 57.37 points or 0.65 percent to close at 8,824.94 points with total turnover of 887,972 shares.
BR Cement Index inched up by 24.75 points or 0.43 percent to close at 5,721.59 points with 10.260 million shares.
BR Commercial Banks Index increased by 117.35 points or 1.15 percent to close at 10,334.29 points with 15.432 million shares.
BR Power Generation and Distribution Index surged by 99.96 points or 1.63 percent to close at 6,240.29 points with 22.157 million shares.
BR Oil and Gas Index added 32.5 points or 0.81 percent to close at 4,049.79 points with 12.574 million shares.
BR Tech. & Comm. Index closed at 3,788.14 points, up 20.79 points or 0.55 percent with 49.510 million shares.
Waqar Iqbal at JS Global Capital said that the market opened with a positive momentum on back of correction in international oil prices, while better financial results posted by companies provided further support. KSE100 index closed at 46,340, gaining 392 points. Volume leaders were TREET (up 3.7 percent), KEL (up 0.9 percent), HUMNL (up 0.1 percent), WTL (up 0.5 percent) and EPCL (up 20 percent).
Copyright Business Recorder, 2022