KARACHI: The Pakistan Stock Exchange Monday opened keeping bullish trend of previous week and crossed the psychological barrier of 40,000 marks as the benchmark 100-index added 104 points to reach 40011.84 points level in early trading.
Last week, the overall sentiments remained positive at the bourse; however the benchmark KSE-100 Index failed to close above the psychological mark of 40,000. The Index did manage to cross the barrier a few times during the last trading session, but closed at 39,907 (+1.3 percent WoW). Overall market activity remained healthy with major interest seen in sectors like leisure goods (+5 percent WoW), pharmaceuticals (+2.2 percent WoW), autos (+2.3 percent WoW) and gas water and utilities (+0.5 percent WoW).
Out of the Index heavyweights, cements (+2.3 percent WoW on strong cement numbers recorded during July-16), banks (+2.5 percent with value buyers jumping back in) and Oil & Gas (+3.1 percent WoW on rebounding global crude prices) remained in the limelight. Overall participation also recorded improvement with average volume and value trade increasing by 18 percent WoW and 5 percent WoW, respectively. Average daily volumes witnessed 18 percent increase, with volumes clocking in at 265.1 million shares. On the other hand, average daily values climbed 5 percent to Rs11.4 billion/ $109.3 million
