PHOTO: EXPRESS TRIBUNE
KARACHI: Stocks returned to winning ways, bouncing back after a minor correction on Tuesday with the benchmark-100 index climbing 505.81 points and surpassing the 49,000-point level with ease.
Led by financial, cement and auto scrips, the index ended at a new record high on Wednesday.
At close, the Pakistan Stock Exchange’s (PSX) benchmark KSE 100-share Index finished with a rise of 1.04% to end at 49,371.60.
Elixir Securities analyst Ali Raza said Pakistan equities bucked the recent sideways trend and closed at a new all-time high over 49,000 helped by institutional buying in index names.
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“Contrary to our expectations of a bear session, stocks opened positive and benchmark KSE-100 Index continued to gain ground during the day with notable index names trading higher.
“Fertiliser stocks saw revival in interest on rumours that government is going to restore subsidy on urea and DAP, bringing Fauji Fertilizer (FFC, +3.6%) and Engro Fertilizers (EFERT,+1.4%) in the limelight.
“Financials and cements both gained on reported local interest, while textiles traded volatile and closed mixed as key stocks succumbed to profit-taking at their intra-day highs.”
Exploration and production closed little changed tracking global crude. “Notably, Hub Power (HUBC) gained 2.6% in the last minutes of trading as company notified exchange of increasing stake in its JV China Power Hub Generation Co.
“Engro Corp (ENGRO, +1%) closed in green and is likely to open gap up on news of additional gas that hit the wires after market close,” said Raza.
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JS Global analyst Nabeel Haroon said the market advanced with banking stocks being among the favourites.
“Banking sector led the gains in the market, as the sector gained to close (+1.3%) higher than its previous day close.
“MCB (+3.59%) and UBL (+2.02%) were major index movers from the aforementioned sector.
“Investor interest was seen in the automobile sector on the back of sales numbers released by PAMA for the month of December 2016.
“The textile sector extended its gain on the back of Rs180 billion package for export oriented sectors announced by Prime Minster. The textile sector was the main beneficiary of the export package.”
Trading volumes rose to 460 million shares compared with Tuesday’s tally of 413 million.
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Shares of 426 companies were traded. At the end of the day, 253 stocks closed higher, 158 declined while 15 remained unchanged. The value of shares traded during the day was Rs24.9 billion.
Engro Fertilizer was the volume leader with 31.7 million shares, gaining Rs0.95 to finish at Rs70.57.It was followed by TRG Pakistan Limited with 25.5 million shares, gaining Rs1.97 to close at Rs47.98 and Pace Pakistan Limited with 19.4 million shares, gaining Rs0.24 to close at Rs12.41.
Foreign institutional investors were net sellers of Rs2.94 billion during the trading session, according to data maintained by the National Clearing Company of Pakistan Limited.
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