KARACHI: The stock market snapped its three-day losing streak, giving way to a robust rally on Thursday with the KSE-100 index opening in the positive by 410 points.

The benchmark came close to testing the intraday all-time high by climbing to 43,276 points, representing gains of 653 points.

However, the euphoria over the decision by Opec ministers to cut production for the first time in eight years resulting in a 10 per cent rise in international oil prices soon simmered down.

Investors decided to take profit at such high levels, which pulled the benchmark index down. But it still closed with gains of 284.99 points (0.67pc) at 42,907.36 points.

Overall, volumes declined 14pc over the previous day to 504 million shares while the value increased 2pc to Rs18.1 billion as the day was dominated by high-value scrips.

Being the major beneficiary, all four listed companies of the E&P sector started trading at their upper locks. Late profit-taking led to a slight decline towards the end with OGDC up 4.06pc, POL 4.79pc and PPL 4.48pc.

Oil marketing companies (OMCs) also attracted investors’ interest as the government announced an increase in petroleum prices.

PSO, Attock Petroleum and Shell Pakistan were up in the range of 0.4-2.1pc.

Analysts at Intermarket Securities stated that the performance of autos, steel and banks remained unimpressive with pressure to the downside coming from selling witnessed in select banking stocks, like MCB down 1.09pc, HBL 1.47pc, BOP 4.46pc and NIB 3.27pc.

Mughal Iron and Steel fell 2.22pc, Amreli Steel 0.59pc, International Steels 3.42pc, International Industries 1.19pc and Aisha Steel 0.92pc also saw profit-taking.

Published in Dawn, December 2nd, 2016