KARACHI: Pakistan Stock Exchange’s benchmark 100-share index surged by 529 points, or 1.44 per cent, during the outgoing week to shoot past the 37,000 barrier and settle at 37,223 points.

The trading on Friday closed at 4.30pm, which was hours before the announcement of the federal budget 2016-17. At one point on Friday, enormous buying by capital-protected mutual funds helped index amass intraday gains of 500 points.

Investors had obviously got a clue to ‘all of the same’ in the budget with no new heavy taxation on investment in stocks. Most market watchers believed that the euphoria over the Pakistan’s entry into the Morgan Stanley Capital International (MSCI) Emerging Markets Index continued to lure investors to anticipatory buying, mainly of blue chip stocks. Bulls thus charged relentlessly for last three days of the week.

Average volumes clocked in at 239 million shares, down 4pc over the shares traded the earlier week while average traded value rose 10pc to Rs11 billion.

Foreign Institutional Portfolio Investment (FIPI) recorded an inflow of $14.4m against an outflow of $3.8m in the preceding week.

Foreign buying helped to lift investor sentiment. Net foreign buying of $12m and $10.2m was seen in cement and oil and gas marketing sectors. On the other hand, major selling was seen in the banking sector to the tune of $8.9m.

“During the week, the textile weaving sector was among the major gainer as it grew by 25pc, whereas Tobacco was down 3pc,” assessed dealers at Topline Securities.

Analysts at brokerage Intermarket Securities worked out that stocks which contributed highest points to the KSE-100 index during the week included: FML (235 points), LUCK (50 points), UBL (34 points), ENGRO (30 points) and HUBC (28 points).

On the flip side, FCCL (down 113 points) lost the most due to the damage at the company’s plant, followed by MCB (28 points), BAHL (14 points), HBL (14 points) and PAKT (13 points) also kept the index in check.

According to dealers at KASB Securities, leading gainers during the week were Feroze1888, Hascol Petroleum Limited, Pioneer Cement, Millat Tractors and Kohat Cement, whereas Fauji Cement, Pakistan Tobacco Company, Jahangir Siddiqui and Co, IGI Insurance and TRG Pakistan were the major laggards.

Published in Dawn, June 5th, 2016