KARACHI: The Pakistan Stock Exchange bounced back on the last trading day of the week as the benchmark 100-index gained 373.13 points to take the tally to 42641.75 points level at closing on Friday.
The stocks recorded the highest trading level of 42784.72 points and lowest level of 41836.10 points, with the volume of over 177.015 million shares and value of Rs9.37 billion. As many as 359 companies were active; of which 232 advanced, 116 declined and 11 remained unchanged.
TRG Pak Ltd was the volume leader with 24.85 million shares, shedding Rs1.99 to reach Rs38.07. It was followed by K-Electric with 15.45 million shares, adding Rs0.09 to end at Rs6.22 and BoP with 11.22 million shares, dropping Rs0.07 to close at Rs9.57.
The top three gainers were Rafhan Maize with price per share of 6999.38 (200), Bata (Pak) with price per share of 2940 (140) and Unilever Foods of 6400 (100).
The top three losers were Nestle Pakistan with price per share of 10900 (-100), Sanofi-Aventis with price per share of 1785.98 (-93.99) and Service Ind. Ltd share of 1006.24 (-52.95).
Earlier, the stocks started day on negative note and dropped 57 points to drop to 42211 points level in early trading. The PSX regained the early losses after adding 152 points to reach 42420.53 points level till midday.
On Thursday, bears returned to the PSX, pulling back 642 points from the benchmark 100-share index. The index closed at 42,269 points. After an intra-day high of 262 points, selling pressure in the second half dragged the market down, brokers said.
DGKC closed at its lower limit as pressure on pricing continued to weigh on investors’ sentiments. Top 5 contributors in session were NML (up 3.2%), HUBC (up 0.6%), NESTLE (up 0.7%), JLICL (2.9%) & NRL (up 1.3%), contributing 42 points. Amongst sectors, major selling was seen in cement (down 3.2%) as the sector contributed 145 points to index decline. Similarly, oil & gas marketing contributed 90.5 to index points as the sector was down 3%.
Volumes increased by 11% to 185m shares compared to 166m shares of previous session and values increased by 7% to Rs10b/$95m. Azgard Nine led the volume with 21m shares traded.
