KARACHI: The Pakistan Stock Exchange remained bullish till midday and gained another 136.87 points to reach record 40044.51 points level on Monday.
Earlier, the PSE opened keeping bullish trend of previous week and crossed the psychological barrier of 40,000 marks as the benchmark 100-index added 104 points to reach 40011.84 points level in early trading.
Last week, the overall sentiments remained positive at the bourse; however the benchmark KSE-100 Index failed to close above the psychological mark of 40,000. The Index did manage to cross the barrier a few times during the last trading session, but closed at 39,907 (+1.3 percent WoW). Overall market activity remained healthy with major interest seen in sectors like leisure goods (+5 percent WoW), pharmaceuticals (+2.2 percent WoW), autos (+2.3 percent WoW) and gas water and utilities (+0.5 percent WoW).
Out of the Index heavyweights, cements (+2.3 percent WoW on strong cement numbers recorded during July-16), banks (+2.5 percent with value buyers jumping back in) and Oil & Gas (+3.1 percent WoW on rebounding global crude prices) remained in the limelight. Overall participation also recorded improvement with average volume and value trade increasing by 18 percent WoW and 5 percent WoW, respectively. Average daily volumes witnessed 18 percent increase, with volumes clocking in at 265.1 million shares. On the other hand, average daily values climbed 5 percent to Rs11.4 billion/ $109.3 million
