KARACHI – Though bullish momentum continued at the Karachi Stock Exchange with the benchmark KSE-100 index crossing the psychological barrier of 35,000 level on Friday, the index, in the early trading on Monday, lost 15.31 points or 0.04pc to reach 34656.94.
However, High and Low were 34844.20 and 34619.20 respectively and total volume traded in the market was 165,613,810. On the last trading day, profit taking at these levels led to KSE-100 to close with average trading volumes increasing by 10pc WoW to 328m shares/day.
Various factors propped up the market optimism including soft Jan-2015 CPI inflation reading of 3.88pc YoY; successful completion of IMF’s sixth review for the release of $518m; and slash in National Savings rate by 150bp by the State Bank of Pakistan. Sharp pull-back in international crude oil prices helped Oil & Gas sector to gain 3.4pc WoW whereas Telecom and Pharmaceutical sectors underperformed the market.