Bulls take control

A bullish trend continued on Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) Thursday. The benchmark KSE-100 index gained another 210.11 points to close at 49,665.97 points. The index hit 49,937.88 points intra-day high and 49,424.16 points intra-day low level before closing in green.
Buying was seen mainly by local investors and institutions; however foreigners remained net sellers of shares worth $6.2 million.
Trading activity also improved as the daily volumes on the ready counter increased to 447.243 million shares as compared to 356.136 million shares traded Wednesday. The market capitalisation increased by Rs 43 billion to Rs 9.897 trillion. Out of total 426 active scrips, 213 closed in positive, 199 in negative while the value of 14 stocks remained unchanged.
Dost Steels was the volume leader with 57.677 million shares. It gained Rs 0.60 to close at Rs 14.73 followed by K-Electric that inched up by Rs 0.13 to close at Rs 10.41 with 42.780 million shares. TRG Pakistan surged by Rs 1.83 to close at Rs 58.63 with 32.448 million shares.
Wyeth Pak and Bata Pak were the top gainers with Rs 215.55 and Rs 204.00, respectively to close at Rs 4,526.55 and Rs 4,294.00. Rafhan Maize and Philip Morris Pak were the top losers with Rs 137.00 and Rs 40.00, respectively to close at Rs 7,500.00 and Rs 2,600.00.
Nabeel Haroon at JS Global Capital said positivity prevailed in the market during most part of the day, as the index gained to make an intraday high of +478 points. Later on pressure was witnessed in the market for a brief period of time as it lost ground to make an intraday low 29 points. This pressure in the market was short lived as index recovered during the latter hours to close 210 points higher than its previous day close. OGDC (up 1.11 percent) gained on the back of the news that government intends to wait for further divestment of its 5.0 percent stake in company until its share price touches Rs200/share mark in the market. ISL gained to close on its upper circuit for the second consecutive day of the week on the back of the expansion plan announced by the company yesterday. Under its expansion plan company intends to add a Cold Rolling Mill, a pickling line and related facilities to its existing manufacturing line. CSAP (up 4.85 percent) in the steel sector extended its previous day gain, as the first half of FY17 result declared by the company continued to garner investor interest.
Ahsan Mehanti at Arif Habib Corporation said that stocks showed recovery amid support in oil scrips on upbeat OMC''s sales data and surge in local POL prices this week. Surge in NSS profit rates invited mid-session pressure in banking stocks. He said that upbeat CPI inflation data and speculations on earning announcements in cement, steel and pharma sectors played a catalyst role in bullish close.