Stocks finish weekend session with 35-point gain
KARACHI: Stocks remained firm on Friday with the KSE-100 index closing higher by 35.13 points at 34,443.87.
Investors were excited over the unscheduled visit of prime minister which intensified trading in early hours, taking the index up by 211 points intra-day.
However, late selling due to the Shikarpur incident eliminated much of the day’s gains. Yet, the volume for the day jumped to a massive 349 million shares, from 207m shares the earlier day.
Trading value also shot up to Rs23.6 billion, from Rs14.7bn.
Even foreign investors turned net buyers on Friday, picking up stocks worth $3.58m.
Ahsan Mehanti at Arif Habib Corp observed that the stocks closed higher in the earnings announcement session at KSE, led by cement and fertiliser scrips on strong valuations.
Oil stocks fell amid falling international oil prices. Declining fuel costs and coal prices played a catalyst role in bullish sentiments in cement sector despite intra-day pressure after the terrorist attack in Shikparpur.
Analyst Muhammad Mobeen at JS Global stated that the cement sector dominated the index as MLCF, CHCC and KOHC reached their upper-circuits and DGKC and FECTC ended higher by 3.8 per cent and 3.4pc.
FFC experienced profit-taking. High volumes of trade were witnessed in EFERT as investors anticipate earnings increase due to the gas allowance from MARI.
PAEL continued its northward journey ending at its upper-cap and dominating the market as volume leader owing to the interest-rate cut.
The week turned out to be bullish for the market with a gain of 417 points due mainly to euphoria caused by the 100 basis points cut in the discount rate by the SBP to 8.5pc.
Published in Dawn January 31st, 2015
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