KARACHI: Stocks staged strong rebound on Wednesday as news filtered into the market relating to a warm welcome accorded by international fund managers to the Pakistan’s offer of five-year sovereign sukuk.

There were indications that the government had received bids of $2.3 billion against the target of $1bn.

The KSE-100 index rose by 230.73 points or by 0.74 per cent to close at 31,454.47 points.

For the time being investors set aside worries over the heating up of political temperature in the wake of arrival of the cleric-turned-politician Tahirul Qadri of Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT) and a major protest rally on Nov 30 called by Pak­istan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI).

Foreign portfolio outflows continued for the second day with a net sale of $2.43 million worth stocks by foreign investors.

The volumes stood high at 246m shares compared to 160m shares traded the earlier day.

Analysts at ‘Alternate Research’ calculated that the banking sector contributed 90 points to the index gains while material sector (cement) added 79 points. HCAR managed to pull itself up to reach its price ceiling on Wednesday.

Brokerage Sunrise Capital stated that the market started out on a recovery mode and buying was witnessed in all the sectors.

Electricity was the top traded sector with total traded volume of 40m shares. It was followed by banking with a total traded volume of 32m shares, construction and materials (cement) sector stood on the third place in terms of volume at 32m shares.

In electricity sector LPL, Japan Power and Southern Electric rose by 4.62pc, 16.56pc and 9.16pc, while KEL dropped by 2.04pc.

In banking sector FABL, JSBL, MCB, SMBL and NBP gained 1.53pc, 2.47pc, 1.64pc, 8.72pc and 0.93pc, respectively.

In cement sector, value of DGKC, MLCF, CHCC and PIOC rose by 2.80pc, 2.44pc, 1.86pc and 1.54pc, respectively.

Published in Dawn, November 27th , 2014