KARACHI: The stock market rallied on Thursday with the KSE-100 index up by 423.87 points (1.26 per cent) to close at 33,961.29.

The recovery in equity values was sparked by the stability in the global markets.

Volume decreased 20pc to 223 million shares from 279m, while trading value slid 13pc to Rs10.9 billion from Rs12.4bn. Pace Pakistan, third-tier stock, was the volume leader with closing seen at Rs7.23.

Foreigners offloaded stocks worth $5.17m mainly from banks and oil and gas sector, which raised the net selling in last nine sessions to $82.2m and year-to-date outflow at $172.18m.

Among the major news flow was the signing of MoU to integrate the country’s three stock exchanges (KSE, LSE and ISE) to form a new entity — Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSE).

Ahsan Mehanti at Arif Habib Corp commented that the finance minister’s remarks regarding stable economic outlook and integrating PSE into MSCI Emerging Market status by 2016 were sentiment boosters.

According to analyst Ahmed Saeed Khan, support came from the oil sector following recovery in global crude prices. POL, PPL and OGDC gained 4.4pc, 2.9pc and 2.4pc, respectively.

Increase was also noted in stock prices of ATRL 4.4pc and Hascol 4.9pc.

Local investors took interest in the cement sector on announcement of new projects by ADB. Biggest gainers in the sector were MLCF (5pc), CHCC (3.7pc) and DGKC (2.3pc).

Positivity prevailed in the auto sector, where the entire sector traded in the green.

Adamjee Insurance 1H2015 result announcement of earnings per share at Rs4.60, beat analysts’ expectations, helping the stock to close higher by 2.4pc, analyst at Topline Securities said.

Published in Dawn, August 28th, 2015

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