KARACHI: The share market gained 579 points on Wednesday owing to better financial results by the banking sector.
The benchmark KSE-100 index of Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) closed at 41,536 points as against 40,956 points showing an increase of 579 points.
Analysts at Arif Habib Limited said that this is the third consecutive positive closing of KSE-100 since the beginning of the week, where the Index has added around 1400 points from last week’s closing level.
Though the weekend left vestiges of political uncertainty, institutional investors kept brisk buying activity on the back of quarterly earnings.
Banking sector results announced so far has helped Index sustain existing rates, where the investors took positions in Oil & gas, Cement and Power sector stocks with a positive view on FATF ruling scheduled to be announced by end of week, on Friday.
Fertilizer sector outperformed today on the back of healthy earnings and hefty dividend declaration from EFERT, the result of which was seen on ENGRO as well.
By the end of session, UBL saw buying activity that helped regain points lost due to profit booking in PSO.
Among scrips, UNITY led the volumes with 64.4 million shares, followed by PIBTL (63.9 million) and HASCOL (47.2 million).
Sectors contributing to the performance include Banks (+185 points), Fertilizer (+116 points), Technology (+53 points), Power (+32 points) and E&P (+22 points).
Volumes increased from 492.6 million shares to 661.3 million shares (+34 percent DoD). Average traded value also increased by 33 percent to reach US$ 134.9 million as against US$ 101.1 million.
Stocks that contributed significantly to the volumes include UNITY, PIBTL, HASCOL, PRL and ASL, which formed 38 percent of total volumes.
Stocks that contributed positively to the index include BAHL (+77 points), ENGRO (+46 points), EFERT (+43 points), HUBC (+34 points) and SYS (+26 points).
Stocks that contributed negatively include ABOT (-9 points), POL (-7 points), PSO (-7 points), KEL (-4 points) and LOTCHEM (-3 points).
