KARACHI: The stocks closed on Friday on a bullish note with KSE-100 index up by 115.08 points to 26,488.32. The volumes remained thin at 230 million shares compared with average daily turnover of 320 million shares during the week.

Over the week, the index was noted to have risen by 441 points or 1.7 per cent with the market already chipping in return of 4.9pc in the first 10 days of the new year.

Yet, there was widespread belief that the market was heavily over-bought. However, the stocks, currently trading at 4.9 times the earnings, which when compared to the regional peers was still low, several stockbrokers argued.

The figures released by the National Clearing Company Limited in the evening on Friday showed that bulls were starting to slow down the onslaught as the market was carried higher on Friday entirely by the foreign inflows in the heavy sum of $3.45 million.

For all of the last week, foreign investors were net purchasers of equity of a small sum of $0.5 million, due mainly to new year holidays.

On Friday, the local institutional and even individual participants were seen to be net sellers.

The punters and short term traders decided to take profit at current levels and ahead of holidays.

Analyst Asad Siddiqui at Topline Securities stated that investors’ remained interested in Textiles sector as RUYI group (Chinese group that acquired Masood Textiles) was planning to invest $2bn in Pakistan’s textile and energy sectors.

The news of divestment in OGDC, PPL, HBL, UBL and ABL approved by Privatisation Commission Board kept the activity alive and investor interest in those stocks.

The monetary policy statement and the outcome of Musharraf’s trial could also affect market sentiments going forward.