KARACHI: The stocks Monday opened keeping bullish note as the benchmark 100-index gained 254 points in early trading to take the tally to historic level of 40795.85 points.
Last week, the KSE-100 bounced back above 40,000 level again and increased 1.9 percent WoW despite mounting tensions between India and Pakistan at the borders. In contrast to benchmark index, both average traded value ($144 million) and average volume (528 million) declined by 14 percent WoW and 27 percent WoW, respectively during the week.
Of the key sectors, oil & gas (+1.9 percent WoW on crude oil bounce back), gas utilities (+7.1 percent WoW) and autos (+8.2 percent WoW) remained key outperformers whereas cements (+0.3 percent WoW only), fertilisers (+1.7 percent WoW) and banks (+1.3 percent WoW) underperformed the benchmark.
Foreigners were net sellers of $8.6 million during the week. Banks and oil & gas exploration sectors witnessed net selling of $4.2 million and $2.9 million, respectively whereas net buying of $2.6 million was seen in the cement sector. Average daily volumes for the outgoing week decreased 27 percent WoW to 528 million shares while average daily value fell 9 percent WoW to Rs15billion/ $144 million during the week.