KARACHI: Stocks rallied on the first trading day of the week with the KSE-100 index up by 345 points in early trade as excited investors fell over each other in quest for exploration and production stocks on the news of weekend attacks on Saudi Oil facility that triggered international oil prices.

The index recorded gains of 447.24 points (1.42 per cent) and settled at 31,928.55 on Monday. Exploration and production sector alone contributed 225 points with Pakistan Petroleum Ltd (PPL), Oil and Gas Development Company (OGDC) and Pakistan Oilfields Ltd (POL) hitting their upper circuits while Mari Petroleum (MARI) gained 3.99pc.

As the investors’ interest skewed towards the oil stocks, they set aside the fears over FATF decision that had the propensity to push Pakistan on the black list or to retain in the grey area.

By the close of trading, local participants started to take profit but foreign investors fully absorbed the liquidity increasing their positions by $6.16 million.

Volumes showed nominal growth of 1.4pc on a day-on-day basis to reach 10.6m shares as against 103m shares last Friday. Traded value also increased by 6pc to reach $31.9m from $29.9m. Stocks that contributed significantly to the volumes include D. G. Khan Cement (DGKC), OGDC, Hascol Petroleum, Unity Foods and K-Electric, which formed 28pc of total volumes.

Refinery, oil, and marketing companies also saw stock prices rise close to their upper limit. By the end of session, DGKC announced its financial results depicting loss in last quarter, yet announcing 10pc dividend.

Banking sector also turned bullish as news flow suggested the State Bank of Pakistan would keep the policy rate unchanged in the monetary policy to be unveiled in the evening.

National Bank of Pakistan (NBP) rose to its upper circuit, United Bank Ltd (UBL), Habib Bank Ltd (HBL) and MCB Bank (MCB) closed in deep green.

Scrips that contributed most to the Index upside on Monday included OGDC up 4.90pc, PPL 4.99pc, POL 4.89pc, MARI 3.99pc, Pakistan State Oil 2.96pc, UBL 3.82pc, HBL 2.24pc, MCB 1.44pc, NBP 5pc and Bank Al Habib Ltd 1.15pc.

Published in Dawn, September 17th, 2019