KARACHI: The stock market saw another record breaking session on Thursday with the KSE-100 index up 145.42 points (0.29 per cent) to close at a new all-time high of 49,517.02.

The opening was at an exciting note with the index up 433 points, but with 50,000 barrier in sight investors opted to take profit.

Volume increased by 22pc to 563m shares, while value declined by 5pc to Rs23.7bn. Investors remained enthused in equities despite a one-off heavy foreign selling of $28.01m in the previous session, the largest single-day outflow since Feb 2, 2015.

Hub Power provided major support to the market with its stock price up 4.1pc making contribution of 76.5 points to index rise. It extended its previous day rally on the back of reports that the IPP has exercised its option to increase its stake in its subsidiary

China Power Hub Power Generation Company from 26pc to 47.5pc.

Profit taking was seen in fertiliser stocks as investors remained sceptical about the subsidy on urea manufacturers.

Ahsan Mehanti at Arif Habib Corp stated that the bullish sentiments were witnessed across the board at the start of the session which was followed by sell-off as investors got cold feet on concerns over foreign outflows, global equities sell-off and institutional profit taking in the earnings season.

From sector perspective steel, multi-utilities and banks were largely buoyant. Analysts at Intermarket Securities stated that the major contribution to the index rise came from Hubco up 4.09pc, UBL 1.52pc, SEARL 2.34pc, DAWH 2.09pc and SNGP 4.98pc.

On the flip side, HBL lost 0.82pc, PPL 0.85pc, LUCK 0.59pc, Engro 0.58pc and NML 1.73pc NCL 3.05pc and GATM 4.78pc .

Published in Dawn, January 13th, 2017