KARACHI: The market recovered on Thursday with the KSE 100-index rising 111.06 points to 26,862.51, as the investors took heart and were comforted by the stability in the regional markets.

The late rally in index heavyweight ODGC, which rose Rs1.81, contributed around 40 points to the index, helping the market close higher.

Institutional investors did a bit of buying in cement and banking stocks, while punters and small investors continued to rally around two low-priced stocks Jah.Sidd.Co, which closed at 'upper circuit' of Re1 at Rs14.09 and Bank of Punjab (right issue), higher by 12 paisa to Rs2.91. The two scrips accounted for 57 million shares or 22 per cent of the aggregate turnover at 254m shares.

“Pre-dividend rally was seen in Fauji Cement as the scrip gained Re0.13 with trade of 11m shares. Moreover, due to decline in coal prices cement scrips remained high on investors’ radar,” noted Asad I. Siddiqui at Topline Securities.

Other than the OGDC, shares on the oil and gas E&P sector remained under pressure. Ovais Ahsan at JS Global thought that the fear of foreign selling at the local bourse was overplayed on the turmoil in the regional markets. This appeared to be particularly true as the National Clearing Company Limited data released in the evening showed net inflow in a small sum of $0.27m.

Besides the OGDC, share in Fauji Fertiliser was major gainer of the day as institutional buying in the blue chips pushed the index into the green. The privatisation minister's comments to the media reiterating an aggressive sell-off reinvigorated the bulls.

Ahsan Mehanti, analyst at Arif Habib Corp, commented that speculations ahead of major earning announcements, renewed foreign interest in banking and fertiliser stocks and favourable CPI inflation data played a catalyst role in bullish sentiments at KSE.