KARACHI: The Pakistan Stocks Exchange bounced back on Monday, as the joint investigations team probing allegations of money-laundering against Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his family submitted its report to the Supreme Court.
With the top court adjourning the case for a week, investors took advantage of attractive valuations and bought shares in droves as the KSE-100 Index – a benchmark for market performance – finished with a gain of 2.33% or 1,051.66 points to end at 46,273.81.
The stocks recorded the highest trading level of 46332.35 points and lowest level of 44710.24 points, with the volume of about 235.29 million shares and value of Rs12.81 billion. As many as 364 companies were active; of which 273 advanced, 75 declined and 16 remained unchanged.
BoP was the volume leader with 21.77 million shares, adding Rs0.55 to reach Rs12.10. It was followed by TRG Pak Ltd with 16.81 million shares, gaining sRs1.79 to end at Rs37.72 and Summit Bank with 10.02 million shares, adding Rs0.96 to close at Rs5.46.
The top three gainers were Bata (Pak) with price per share of 3340 (140), Sanofi-Aventis with price per share of 1730 (80) and Millat Tractors of 1344.23 (39.56).
The top three losers were Unilever Foods with price per share of 5600.06 (-199.94), Exide (PAK) with price per share of 848.56 (-20.44) and Atlas Battery share of 860.84 (-14.30).
Earlier, the stocks started week on positive note and gained 38 points to reach 45279 points level in early trading. The upward rally continued at Pakistan Stock Exchange as the benchmark 100-index gained 690 points to take the tally to 45912 points level till midday.
Last week, the PSX 100-share index continued to remain under pressure as investors waited for clarity on the outcome of JIT investigation. The index was down 3 percent as compared to a decline of 1% seen during the week ending Jun 22 (pre-Eid).
Foreigners remained net sellers of $5.8m during the week as compared to buying of $9.2m last week (week ending June 22). Major buying was seen in cement sector ($5m) whereas selling was seen in oil & gas exploration ($6.2m) & banks ($3.3m). As a result of this unexpected PKR move against US dollar, PAEL plunged 10% in 3 sessions vs KSE 100-index benchmark index decline of 0.3%.
