KARACHI: The Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) Tuesday started second day of New Year on bullish note and crossed the psychological barrier of 41,000 after adding 307 points to reach 41018 level in early trading.
On Monday, the stocks greeted 2018 on a positive note as the 100-share index closed up by 239 points. Market initially made an intra-day low of 302 points, however during the second half of the day the index recovered to make an intra-day high of 344 points and finally closed at 40,711 points.
Interest in heavy-weight stocks including HBL (up 4.12%), ENGRO (2.02%), UBL (1.11%), LUCK (1.07%) and DGKC (1.96%) cumulatively contributed 186 points to the index gain.
CPI numbers were announced yesterday that clocked in at 4.57% YoY for Dec-2017 vs 3.97% YoY in Nov-2017, creating excitement in the banking sector. HBL (up 4.12%), BAFL (2.31%), BAHL (3.17%) and UBL (1.11%) closed in the green.
Scrips that contributed positively included HBL that added 104 points, ENGRO 33 points, BAHL 28 points, UBL 21 points, and KAPCO that contributed 19 points o the index gain respectively.
Stocks that contributed negatively included PAKT that shed 28 points, MCB 21 points, ABOT 13 points, HUBC 10 points and NATF that took away 9 points from the index. Volumes were recorded at 119m shares as against 241m shares on last trading day (down 51% DoD). Similarly, average traded value also went down by 52% to reach $40.4m as against $84.4m the other day.
Stocks that contributed significantly to the volumes included TRG, DSL, EPCL, DCL and DFML contributing a total of 51m shares, reflecting 43% share of total volumes.
