KARACHI, Aug 31: The relentless charge of the bulls continued at the Karachi Stock Exchange on Friday, which saw the KSE-100 index jump by another 137.87 points to close at 15,391.58 points.

As the all-time high of 15,737 points touched on April 20, 2008, comes within sight, the investors seem to be on a high pitch of excitement. Large number of market players believed that given the growing participation of retail investors and a comfortable political environment, the index was likely to break the previous best early next week.

Timid and the shrewd analysts, however, called for caution as a pull back could not be ruled out. For the day, however, investors seemed to have thrown caution to the wind.

The retail investors in particular scarcely saw what they were picking and grabbed whatever was on offer. The market was further enthused by the inflation numbers which poured in during the day’s trading.

“The inflation continued to be in single digit in Aug to a 32-month low of 9.5 per cent over the same month previous year and July figures of 9.6 per cent. Average inflation in two months of financial year 2013 stood at 9.3pc,” said an analyst.

The soft inflation numbers raised the hope of a further cut in policy rates in the next Monetary Policy Statement of the State Bank of Pakistan.

Foreign portfolio inflow on Friday stood at $6.45 million, including off-market deals. Individuals booked profit on the last day of the week with net sale of $3.01 million.

Ahsan Mehanti at Arif Habib Corporation commented that the blue chip stocks in telecom, oil sector led the rally amid interest in third tier stocks on strong valuations leading the index to close near session high.

Renewed foreign interest, higher global commodities affected the sentiments despite concerns for security issues in the city, he said.

Samar Iqbal, equity dealer at Topline Securities said that further slowdown in inflation numbers enticed investors to take fresh position in dividend yielding stocks and leveraged companies.

Investors are expecting further easing of monetary policy in next review. While ICH project development kept the enthusiasm alive in telecommunication sector.

Hasnain Asghar Ali, COO at Escorts Capital stated that the benchmark kept up the gaining momentum due to rise in index heavy weights. Heavy readjustment on account of over lapping futures and last session of the week, the rising trend found stiff resistance.

However, the liquidity awaiting adjustment intervened, thus leaving the adjustment as an intra-day affair. The over heated banking stocks went into a cooling period. The day-end volume increase in OGDC did the rest, thereby allowing the index to close near day's high.

Among the 319 active scrips, 174 were gainers and 126 losers. Turnover rose to 242m shares on Friday, from 224 million shares traded the earlier day.  Trading value escalated to Rs7.846 billion, from Rs6.879 billion and market capitalization added another Rs33 billion to Rs3.919 trillion, from Rs3.886 trillion on Thursday.

The biggest gainer for the day was Colgate Palmolive, up by Rs55 to Rs1,355, while Nestle Pakistan lost the highest sum of Rs50 to Rs4,000. On the ten-volume leaders list, WordlCall Telecom returned the highest turnover of 31m shares, rising by 40 paisa to Rs3.29. PTCL also closed limit up after a gain of Re1 to Rs18.04 on 18m shares, Telecard Limited added 16 paisa to Rs2.91 on 17m shares. Engro Corporation accumulated sizeable sum of Rs4.04 to Rs105.16 on 12m shares, Jah Sidd Co slipped 17 paisa to Rs14.58 on 10m shares, Wateen Telecom gained 27 paisa to Rs3.06 on 9m shares. Engro Foods, after good initial gains, lost 90 paisa in the end to close at Rs71.75 on 8m shares, Fauji Cement slid 12 paisa to Rs6.50 on 8m shares, Pace (Pak) was up by 15 paisa to Rs3.21 on 6m shares and D.G. Khan Cement was down by 46 paisa to Rs51.83 on 5m shares.