KARACHI: Pakistan’s stock market opened plus 600 points in the morning and KSE-100 index touched 45,074.37 mark as the oil sector was booming since last Friday following government’s announcement to clear the circular debt of IPPs.
The Karachi Share Index (KSE-100) gained 251.66 points (0.57 per cent) after closing at 44,686.46 points against the previous closing of 44,434.80 points. The market went up to 45,074.37 points during intra-day trading, while recorded as low as 44,434.80 points.
Trading volume decreased to 540.8 million shares today as compared to 643.6 million traded in the previous session, according to PSX website data. The daily traded value decreased to Rs 26.661 billion from Rs 27.303 billion in the previous session, the data said.
According to Mohammad Sohail CEO Topline, KSE-100 index opened plus 600 points in the morning, but went down on profit taking. However, the other analysts said that there are upper circuit locks in oil and gas companies and several other stocks as sentiments of previous session were still supporting the market.
According to Ali Poonawala, analyst at AKD securities, positive carry from the previous trading session continued today as sentiments remained buoyed on the back of clarity on the settlement of outstanding receivables for the power sector (consequently circular debt) leading to expectations of sizable dividend payouts by the energy chain.
In this backdrop, analyst said, the index was primarily driven by energy and utilities today. However, profit-taking at a higher level (primarily in cement, steel and auto over concerns on the government taking reported notice of recent price hikes) pared some intra-day gains which led the benchmark KSE-100 Index to gain 0.57% (intraday high +1.42%) to settle at 44,686.46 points today.
In term of volumes, the overall market traded 678 million shares (down 13%DoD) where PAEL recorded the highest volumes for the day with 27 million shares traded followed by HUBC (25 million shares traded) and HASCOL (25 million shares traded). TRG contributed the most to the index decline (down 6.49%) while HUBC provided the biggest boost (up 5.49%) to the benchmark.
The share price of Nestle Pakistan increased by Rs 72.50 closing at Rs 6,700 while Bata Pak gained Rs 38.47 to close at Rs 1,549. Similarly, Millat Tractors lost Rs 25.16 today to close at Rs 1,072.30 while Jubile Life Ins lost Rs 25.13 to close at Rs 360.87.
