KARACHI: The Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) closed higher on Tuesday as it followed an oil-price rally in the regional markets, led by rising international crude prices and hopes of a vote for oil output freeze in the Opec meeting next week. The KSE-100 index gained 192 points (0.45 per cent) to close at 42,632.
Investors brushed aside the upcoming events of Supreme Court Panamagate case hearing and more importantly the incessant massive foreign selling. On Tuesday, net foreign selling amounted to $18.22 million, which raised the nine-session foreign outflow since Nov 9, to $82.07m. Institutional and individual investors absorbed all of the foreign sell-off.
The significant feature of the day’s trading was also a big leap in investor participation as the overall volumes increased by 34.5pc to 467m shares, while value increased by a massive 75pc over the previous day.
While second and third tier stocks continued to lead the volume list, heavyweight E&P sector helped bring about a strong surge in the trading value. Bulk of the trading activity took place in PACE, SMBL, PIAA, BOP and ANL, which cumulatively churned 157m shares out of the aggregate day’s volume of 467m shares.
“On the E&P sector, OGDC, POL and PPL gained between 1.3pc to 3.6pc. Oil marketing companies continued to attract investors’ interest as HASCOL and BYCO closed at their upper price limits”, said dealers at Topline Securities.
The Sui-twins were also firm with SNGP and SSGC up 5pc and 3.6pc.
Utilities were up by 1.53pc, energy by 1.49pc and consumer staples by 1.10pc while financials ended up biting the dust once again, losing 0.50pc.
Cement companies also performed well with DGKC up 0.31pc, LUCK by 0.27pc, FCCL by 1.62pc and ACPL by 1.97pc.
Published in Dawn, November 23rd, 2016
