KARACHI: The Pakistan Stock Exchange bounced back as the benchmark KSE-100 Index climbed 844.10 points or 2.09% on Friday.
For a change, investors kept aside political uncertainty and deteriorating macroeconomic indicators to take advantage of attractive valuations, injecting money across the board with cement, auto and bank stocks driving the index forward.
At close on Friday, the KSE-100 Index ended at 41,312.59 for the 844.10-point increase. Falling prey to ongoing political drama, the KSE-100 Index had declined massively during the week, even hitting the all-time low of 2017 at 40,461 points.
However, Friday saw respite as the index gained steadily throughout the day with investors jumping on the buying opportunity at attractive valuations.
The stocks recorded the highest trading level of 41343.78 points and lowest level of 40468.49 points, with the volume of over 147 million shares and value of Rs8.67 billion. As many as 365 companies were active; of which 263 advanced, 81 declined and 21 remained unchanged.
TRG Pak Ltd was the volume leader with 10.17 million shares, adding Rs1.66 to reach Rs35.86. It was followed by Maple Leaf with 9.09 million shares, adding Rs3.18 to end at Rs77.18 and K-Electric with 8.49 million shares, gaining Rs0.24 to close at Rs6.93. The top three gainers were Mari Petroleum with price per share of 1542.05 (51.69), Indus Motor Co with price per share of 1670.02 (47.34) and Service Ind. Ltd of 961.34 (41.34).
The top three losers were Sanofi-Aventis with price per share of 1726 (-56), Bhanero Tex with price per share of 723.63 (-38.08) and Indus Dyeing share of 475.01 (-24.99).
Earlier, the stocks started day on bullish note and added 410 points to take the tally to 40878 points level in early trading. The Pakistan Stock Exchange continued its upward journey till midday as the benchmark 100-index added 569 points to reach 41037.74 points level.
On Thursday, the stocks witnessed a partial recovery where value investors took the opportunity to buy stocks at attractive prices. The benchmark KSE 100-index made an intra-day high of 358 points; however recovery didn’t last long as the index fell to make an intra-day low of 425 points and closed up 7 points at 40,468 points.
Market movement was led by fertilizer with 32 points, textile composite with 18 points, automobile assembler with 16 points, commercial banks with 15 points and cement with 13 points. However, oil & gas marketing companies steered negativity at the bourse, shedding 33 points while pharmaceuticals and engineering sectors wiped away 22 and 16 points from the index, respectively.
Top positive contributing scrips were DGKC with 21 points, ENGRO with 20 points, PPL with 16 points, NML with 15 points and MCB with 14 points. While scrips that topped the laggards list included SNGP that shed 27 points, SEARL that eroded 17 points and HUBC that took away 14 points. Market was unable to sustain activity as average daily volumes went down by 22% DoD to 150m shares; similarly average traded value settled at Rs8.7b/USD78m, down by 15% DoD.
