KARACHI: Bulls on Friday staged a spectacular rally that saw the KSE-100 index storm past several barriers to close with stellar gains of 684.75 points (1.59 per cent) at 43,627.10.

Investors seemed to be relieved by the switchover of foreign investors’ sell to buy mode. The concerns over Pakistan being put on the gray list of Fina­ncial Action Task Force were also allayed to some extent.

Blue-chip scrips which had come under heavy beating in the last two sessions turned favourites with stock values increasing sharply, especially in the second session.

Institutional investors cherry-picked stocks across the board. Sectors contributing to this increase included commercial banks, increasing by 244 points, exploration and production 114 points, oil and gas marketing companies 58 points, cement 48 points and pharmaceutical 36 points.

The market volume eroded 32.4pc over the previous day to 148 million shares while the traded value also declined by 23.7pc to reach Rs5.84 billion. TRG Pakistan, Azgard Nine, Pakistan Stock Exchange and Fauji Foods were the leaders.

Major support came from Searle Company, up 4.99pc, GlaxoSmithKline Pak­i­s­tan 3.86pc, Habib Bank 3.42pc, United Bank 3.22pc, MCB Bank 1.43pc, Bank Alfalah 1.72pc, Habib Metro 2.27pc, Pakistan Petroleum 2.80pc, Oil and Gas Development Company 1.23pc, Lucky Cement 2.16pc and Pakistan Oilfi­elds 1.79pc. Significant price increments were observed in banks, whereby HBL saw a rapid price spike of almost Rs9 in the second session.

The National Clearing Company’s figures showed a minor net sale by foreign investors amounting to $0.6m. Analyst Ahsan Mehanti attributed the recovery to institutional speculations in the earnings season on strong valuations.

“Surge in global crude prices, upbeat data on textile exports, remittances and cement dispatches for July-December 2017 and robust financial results in cement, auto and oil sectors played a catalyst role in bullish close,” he said.

Published in Dawn, February 17th, 2018