KARACHI: Stock market moved sideways on Wednesday, posting minor gain of 11.71 points to close at 27258.68. The consolidation, however, seemed to herald bullish trend as the index shot up by 107 points to intra-day high at 27366.15, although after the initial euphoria, the index slid to intra-day low at 27,200.69, representing a maximum fall of 16 points.

With a narrow gap between the gainers and losers, the market in general witnessed a directionless trade. Turnover however rose by 39pc as the second and third tier stocks were in the forefront of volume leaders.

Buying was witnessed in banking sector as UBL, NBP and ABL gained 3.69pc; 1.2pc and 1.68pc.

Mixed trend was seen in the cement sector which saw pruning in the price of Lucky by 2.31pc; Cherat by 0.96pc. On the other hand, Fauji rose by 2.08pc and D.G. Khan was up by 0.38pc.

On Wednesday, foreign outflow amounted to $2.93m, while individuals bought stocks worth $3.06m.

Analyst Fahad Ali agreed that the index remained range bound. Significant profit-taking was witnessed in oil and gas and fertiliser sectors.

Major interest was seen in FABL, Fatima and FCCL. The analyst expects market to be bullish for the next couple of days with major interest in oil and gas, banking and cement sectors.

Analyst Ahsan Mehanti observed that the banking stocks led the rally on higher banking spreads following SBP status quo in policy rates, SSGC & SNGP remained in limelight on falling UFG losses to 9.33pc.

Rising fertiliser off-take and higher local cement prices played a catalyst role in bullish sentiments at KSE despite global stocks uncertainty on Crimea-Russia annexation.

Equity dealer Samar Iqbal commented that mixed trend was witnessed at local bourse in absence of any major news flow. Oil stocks witnessed profit-taking as PPL fell by Rs3.55 with 1.4m shares and POL lost Rs.6.34.