KARACHI:
The stock market continued its upward trend for the sixth straight day led by the refinery sector stocks.
The Karachi Stock Exchange’s (KSE) benchmark 100-share index rose 0.22 per cent or 27.4 points to end at 12,222.52 point level.
Refinery stocks pulled up the market over rumours that deemed duty, a tax collected by refineries on sale of products, of 7.5 per cent on high speed diesel will remain intact against market expectation of a cut in the upcoming budget, said JS Global Capital analyst Jawad Khan.
National Refinery gained the maximum five per cent limit for the day while shares of Attock Refinery jumped 1.5 per cent. The government is expected announce the annual budget in the first week of June.
Trade volumes fell to 80 million shares compared with Thursday’s tally of 102 million shares.
Pakistan Oilfields witnessed decent volumes among the exploration and production stocks and inched up 0.5 per cent as investors eyed the forthcoming discovery announcement that will increase company profits, said Khan.
Pakistan Petroleum also followed and gained 0.6% while Oil and Gas Development Company closed marginally down.
Shares of 343 companies were traded on the last trading session of the week. At the end of the day 130 stocks closed higher, 122 declined while 91 remained unchanged. The value of shares traded during the day was Rs4.02 billion.
Nishat Mills was the volume leader with 6.53 million shares gaining Rs1.5 to finish at Rs61.56. It was followed by DG Khan Cement with 6.45 million shares gaining Rs0.26 to close at Rs23.71 and Jahangir Siddiqui and Company with 6.3 million shares declining Rs0.21 to close at Rs7.94.
Published in The Express Tribune, May 28th, 2011.
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