Fresh buying was seen on both local and foreign desks. Foreign investors remained net buyers of equities on the second consecutive day with $5.2 million. Trading activity also improved significantly as the session recorded the highest year-to-date trading volume of 606.693 million shares (last high of 695 million shares was on November 02, 2016), up 87 percent as compared to 323.923 million shares traded Tuesday. Traded value surged by 21 percent to Rs 24 billion ($226 million).
The market capitalization increased by Rs 126 billion to Rs 10.446 trillion. Out of total 420 active scrips, 215 closed in negative, 188 in positive while the value of 17 stocks remained unchanged. Power Cement (R) was the volume leader with 124.769 million shares. It gained Rs 0.60 to close at Rs 2.30 followed by Bank of Punjab (R) that increased by Rs 0.37 to close at Rs 1.87 with 90.942 million shares. Lotte Chemical lost Rs 0.68 to close at Rs 11.96 with 36.250 million shares.
Wyeth Pak and Exide Pak were the top gainers with Rs 126.95 and Rs 46.51, respectively to close at Rs 2,666.00 and Rs 1,096.46. Sapphire Fiber and Pakistan International Container Terminal were the top losers with Rs 37.50 and Rs 20.34, respectively to close at Rs 1150.00 and Rs 386.65.
Arhum Ghous at JS Global Capital said that the market observed a bullish momentum throughout the day, where KSE-100 index marked its all-time high, closing at 52,876 levels, up 1.40 percent. Some of the top performers of the KSE-100 were MARI (up 1.83 percent), MTL (up 1.55 percent) and THALL (up 3.17 percent). Oil prices rose in the international market as confidence rose on Opec and other big producers to agree to keep output restricted for the rest of 2017 and in the first quarter of next year as well. OGDC (up 3.56 percent) and PPL (up 4.57 percent) were the major contributors from the aforementioned sector. Rally was also witnessed in the Banking sector as the heavyweights, UBL (up 1.13 percent), HBL (up 1.16 percent) and MCB (up 2.08 percent), cumulatively contributed 115 points to the index.
An analyst at Topline Securities said that the KSE-100 index hit all-time level, building on its recent momentum and indicating that the MSCI euphoria hasn't run out of steam. The index point leaders were DAWH (up 5.0 percent), BAHL (up 5.0 percent), PPL (up 4.6 percent), OGDC (up 3.6 percent) and MCB (up 2.1 percent), with positive contribution of 292 points, while PICT (down 6.7 percent), ACPL (down 4.0 percent), JDWS (down 2.0 percent), SEARL (down 0.6 percent) and HCAR (down 0.9 percent) eroded 25 points from the index. On the sector front, Banks added 222 points, Oil & Gas Exploration 156 points and Fertiliser 87.5 points.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2017