Bullish sentiments dominated on the Lahore Stock Exchange on Tuesday and the equities gained amid an ascending transaction volume following fresh buying in bluechips. The LSE-25 index improved by 38.22 points to 5771.93 against 5733.71 of Monday while trading turnover increased to 2.142 million shares compared with the day earlier volume of 1.310 million shares.
The market opened on a mixed note and remained range-bound during the early trading hour but later began improving as investors started taking passions in bluechips companies. As a result, Attock Refinery, Shell Pakistan, Pakistan Refinery, Byco Petroleum, Cherat Cement, United Bank, Fauji Fertiliser, Fauji Fertiliser Bin Qasim, Arif Habib Corporation, Pak Elektron and NetSol Technologies recorded handsome gains. However, Engro Foods, Maple Leaf Cement, Power Cement, Lafarge Pakistan Cement, MCB Bank, Gul Ahmed Textile, Nishat Chunian, Sui Northern, PPL and Dewan Farooq Motors ended with marginal declines. The advancing stocks were ahead of the declining ones, as of 86 active issues, 26 companies posted gains, 17 suffered declines while 43 companies stayed glued to their previous closing. The Attock Refinery gained Rs 4.30, Cherat Cement Rs 4.21, United Bank Rs 3.09 while Fauji Fertiliser, Fauji Fertiliser Bin Qasim and Shell Pakistan were up by Rs 3.09, Rs 2.59 and Rs 2.36. In the negative column, Engro Foods shed Rs 1.76, Maple Leaf lost Rs 1.47 while MCB Bank was down by Re 1.00. The Bank of Punjab topped the volume leaders with 567,000 shares followed by Byco Petroleum with 362,000 shares.