KARACHI: The Pakistan Stock Exchange Thursday surged by 55.72 points to close at another all-time high of 39805.88 points level.
The stocks recorded the highest trading level of 39911.56 points and lowest level of 39742.78 points, with the volume of over 385 million shares, having about Rs 13.27 billion value. As many as 361 companies were active; of which 170 advanced, 170 declined and 21 remained unchanged.
Power generation & distribution was the top traded sector with 114,866,600 volume, while cement remained second with 45,714,150 volume.
K-Electric was the volume leader with 110.10 million shares, gaining Rs 0.19 to finish at Rs 8.81. It was followed by Dewan Salman with 37.68 million shares, losing Rs 5.64 to end at Rs 3.18 and Dewan Cement with 21.09 million shares, gaining Rs 0.72 to close at Rs 17.26.
The top three gainers were Rafhan Maize with price per share of 7477.43 (166.43), Unilever Foods with price per share of 5480 (136) and Island Textile per share of 1047.37 (49.87).
The top three losers were Phillip Morris Pak with price per share of 1411.13 (-58.87), Colgate Palmo with price per share of 1449.40 (-49.60) and Indus Motor Co per share of 1158.88 (-25.47).
Earlier, the stocks started day, adding 78.65 points to reach 39884.53 points level in early trading. The PSX dropped most of the early gains and added 19.48 points to reach 39825.36 points level till midday.
On Wednesday, the stocks closed higher led by blue chip oil, cement and auto stocks, the PSX shares index gained 142.17 points (0.36 percent) to close at its highest-ever 39805.88 points. Cements led early market gains on the back of better than expected dispatches in July 2016, with LUCK (up 2.72 percent) leading sector charts. In the fertilizer space, EFERT (rose 0.75 percent) garnered investor’s interest on the back of its interim cash dividend announcement of Rs2/share. Volumes increased by 9.5 percent at 242 million shares while the value also increased by 7 percent to Rs12.3bn/$118 million). HBL and LUCK contributed 70 points to the gain. DSFL and EFERT led the volumes with 27mn and 18mn shares traded respectively. MCB announced EPS of 4.3/share with cash dividend of Rs4 which was in line with street consensus. Stock gained 0.1%.
