KARACHI: The stock market started the trading week on bullish note with KSE-100 index posting a gain of 176.39 points (0.41 per cent) to close at 43,539.60.

The market shrugged off the previous week’s dullness and opened positive with the benchmark index rising to the intraday high by 257 points before some profit-taking saw the index slip into the red with intraday low by 51 points.

A major market participant said that the institutional investors were encouraged by the the meeting of Pakistan Stock Exchange delegation with Dr Miftah Ismail, Adviser to the Prime Minister on Finance, on Sunday.

While institutions were active, individuals’ participation was lacklustre which pulled the volume down by 40pc over the previous session to 116 million shares while the traded value declined by 22pc to Rs5,258m.

The leaders were again second-tier stocks including Lotte Chemical, Nimir Resins, Fauji Foods, Faysal Bank and TRG Pakistan.

Automobile assemblers closed in green as auto experts predicted demand for automobile to cross 500,000-mark by 2022. Pak Suzuki Motors and Honda Cars gained 1-4pc.

Sectors which contributed most to the index performance were exploration and production, increasing by 59 points, oil marketing companies 29 points, automobile assemblers 28 points, fertiliser 24 points and power generation 14 points.

Foreign outflow was noted at $4.31m as the FTSE re-balancing went into effect from Monday.

Major gainers were Oil and Gas Development Company, up 2.31pc, MCB Bank 2.13pc and Engro Corporation 1.89pc, cumulatively adding 123 points to the index rise whereas laggards Habib Bank, down 1.36pc, Pakistan Petroleum 1.06pc and Bank Alfalah 0.16pc scrapped 65 points away.

Published in Dawn, March 20th, 2018