Contrary to the movement during the first two days of the week, the market closed on an encouraging note. Though the market opened with a positive trend, it declined the index almost an hour later. Thereafter, the index gradually surged to make a high of 8362.45 points followed by a lot of volatility and then finally diving by almost 139 points and closing above the psychological barrier of 8300 at 8319, up 84.17 points.
Tariq Hussain Khan, research analyst at Atlas Investment Bank, said the PTCL was remained on limelight, as it generated 16 million shares, contributing 16 percent share to the total turnover, while banking and cement sectors remained on the rise as market's participants picked fresh positions in respective stocks.
Gainers outnumbered the losers, as 128 companies were up whereby 109 companies managed to close below previous close, he said, adding that trading volumes though relatively thick that raised to 293 million shares, showing a 44 percent increase.
Hasnain Asghar, from Aziz Fidahuesin, said that despite resistance by the bearish forces applied through PTCL aggressive buying in cement and banking stocks allowed the market participants to ignore the index movement rather focus was on the stocks depicting growth in the upcoming quarterly earnings.
Healthy corporate announcements by cements, oil and gas exploration and distribution stocks, however, commit healthy market in coming months as the inflow of fresh funds by mutual funds and highly liquid commercial banks with increase in their limit for investing in equity market would continue to find support around current levels.
Technically, the index would continue to find support around 8277-8283 while resistance stays at 8410-8417, the upcoming holidays might, however, hit the turnover, presence of buyers and healthy corporate announcements would, however, keep the sentiment positive.
Abbas Raza, research analyst at Frist Capital Equitie, said the index, as anticipated, was not without the thrill of volatility either in the market or in stocks, which created ample insecurity among the contestants and after its result announcement for the quarter- PTC (EPS Rs 1.08), (OGDC EPS Rs 2.10, dividend Rs 1.25), PPL (EPS Rs 3.90) and DGKC (EPS Rs 2.85) the scrip's came under pressure, taking the bourse down with it, where jobbers and punters came into the ring and bought DGKC, OGDC and PPL, while parking NBP, ACBL, FCCL and SNGP on its upper circuit.
The future direction of Benchmark 100 depends on Etisalat's or the Privatisation Commission's announcement of PTCL's payment and the take-over date to be announced on October 28 and only two working days left sidelines will be a good strategy to follow.