Pakistan Stock Exchange Friday witnessed a mixed trend as fresh buying was seen in various stocks while at the same time some investors opted to book profit on available margins. BRIndex100 closed flat at 4,939.33 points, down 0.02 points. BRIndex100 touched intraday high of 4,949.08 and intraday low of 4,924.77 points. Volumes stood at 186.956 million shares. BRIndex30 gained 29.52 points or 0.12 percent to 25,238.03 points with a turnover of 140.256 million shares.
The benchmark KSE-100 index increased by 70.68 points to 45,560.30 points. Trading activity also remained low as daily volumes decreased to 230.335 million shares as compared to 296.604 million shares traded Thursday. Foreign investors were net sellers of shares worth $1.3 million. The market capitalization declined by Rs 6 billion to Rs 9.370 trillion. Out of total 374 active scrips, 206 closed in negative, 152 in positive while the value of 16 stocks remained unchanged.
K-Electric was the volume leader with 23.825 million shares. It gained Re 0.02 to close at Rs 7.01 followed by TRG Pak that lost Rs 1.84 to close at Rs 36.36 with 22.466 million shares. Rafhan Maize and Unilever Foods were the top gainers with Rs 200.00 and Rs 195.00, respectively to close at Rs 8,300.00 and Rs 9,895.00. Pak Tobacco and Philip Morris Pak were the top losers with Rs 95.24 and Rs 82.87, respectively to close at Rs 1,956.33 and Rs 2,900.00. BR Commercial Banks Index surged by 99.69 points or 1.06 percent to close at 9,493.44 points with 28.926 million shares.
BR Cement Index lost 36.46 points or 0.59 percent to close at 6,142.93 points with 14.361 million shares. BR Oil and Gas Index gained 9.53 points or 0.18 percent to close at 5,405.94 points with 10.928 million shares. BR Tech. & Comm. Index decreased by 19.38 points or 1.55 percent to close at 1,231.11 points with 30.048 million shares.
BR Power Generation and Distribution Index closed at 6,802.76 points, down 7.35 points or 0.11 percent with 25.680 million shares. Ahsan Mehanti at Arif Habib Corporation said that stocks closed higher led by select banking, fertilizers and oil scrips amid speculations ahead of SBP policy rate announcements.
He said higher global crude prices, foreign inflows, rise in local auto, cement and fertilizer prices amid reports on fertilizer subsidy withdrawals and surging cement sales in March 2018 played a catalytic role in higher close.