KARACHI: Stocks showed strong recovery on Thursday with the KSE-100 index up by 200.41 points or 0.70 per cent to 28,865.25.

The market opened on a positive note and without once looking back, it climbed by 576 points to hit intra-day high of 29,240.

The investors’ sentiments received a boost from the possible end to the stalemate on the political front with the protesting parties and the government showing willingness to sit across the table for talks and the major political parties coming forward with delegations to arbitrate and defuse the situation.

Foreign investors bought stocks worth $1.89 million and mutual funds sitting on cash starting to build up fresh positions with net purchase of $2.38m.

Much of the activity was concentrated in the mid-tier stocks. Yet, the heavyweight oil and gas sector showed several scrips posting heavy gains. APL was up by Rs11.02; OGDC gained Rs2.78; POL rose by Rs4.59 and Pak Refinery was up by Rs3.03. Samar Iqbal, AVP equity sales Topline Securities stated that with political tensions declining after government started negotiation with the parties protesting in Islamabad and USA statement saying “Washington does not support any extra-constitutional changes to the democratic system in Pakistan” also helped boost sentiments. Packages Ltd closed lower after announcing June quarter result.

“Rupee fall and reports on deadlock in consultative talks impacted the sentiments later in the trading session,” said Ahsan Mehanti at Arif Habib Corp.

Analyst at KASB Research commented that the index rose towards upper bound of its range of 28,050-29,200 but failed to sustain above that level which suggested that the range bound behaviour would continue.

However, the momentum of the index was positive.

Published in Dawn, August 22nd, 2014