KARACHI: The Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) on Thursday as the benchmark KSE-100 Index gained 271 points to close at 43,510.
The index showed some negative activity in the first few minutes to hit a day’s low of 43,176 points. It reached a day’s high of 43,634 points during intra-day trading.
Volumes showed significant improvement, as 211.94 million shares worth Rs10 billion changed hands compared to 151.36m shares worth Rs7.1b traded on the previous trading day. Of the 367 traded scrips, 219 advanced, 124 declined and 24 remained unchanged.
The PSX landed in the green thanks mainly to “sharp gains in the Cement sector on reportedly strong institutional flows”, an Elixir Securities report read.
Overall, the cement sector dominated trading with 39.16m shares traded, while the chemical and engineering sectors followed with 37.75m and 15.43m shares changing hands.
The stocks closed Wednesday’s session on a bullish note, with the benchmark KSE 100-index adding 244.48 points to close at 43,239.44 points. Major heavyweights namely OGDC (up 0.56%), PPL (2.44%), ENGRO (1.75%), LUCK (1.97%) and HUBC (1.48%) cumulatively contributed 143 points to the index gain.
Banks came under pressure as HBL (down 0.64%), ABL (1.06%) and UBL (1.07%) led the decline following the Supreme Court ruling, directing the aforementioned banks to immediately raise the minimum pension to Rs8,000 per month.
The payments will be prospective, that is, from the date of the judgment. Moreover, FABL (up 3.25%) closed in the green as the bank has announced full year 2017 EPS at Rs3.42, up 5% YoY. The bank also announced 15% bonus for 2017, with no cash payout. On the positive side, OMCs drove the index where PSO (+2.73%) SHEL (1.87%) closed in the green, as prices of high-speed diesel (HSD) and petrol were likely to increase by almost Rs7 and Rs4 per litre due to increased rates in the international market.
Surging fiscal deficit data for Jul-Feb at 3.2pc GDP, concerns for outcome of IMF $3b repayment by Jun’17 and uncertainty over pre-poll privatisation of SOEs invited mid-session pressure.
Traded volumes slightly improved 151m shares from 145m in the previous session, while value traded increased to $65m (from $62m). Volume leaders were BYCO (up 4.38%), AGL (down 2.17%), ANL (up 5.66%), DSL (down 1.89%) and EPCL (up 2.22%).