KARACHI: The Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) closed almost flat on Friday, with the benchmark KSE-100 index managing to close positive at 46,639 with a net gain of 77 points over the preceding day.
The index had gained over 550 points within the first few minutes of trading to touch a day’s high of 47,144 points, but shed points throughout the day until the session’s close.
Both volumes and traded value picked up from Thursday, with over 248 million shares worth Rs14.6 billion traded. Of the 365 active symbols, 171 advanced, 167 declined while 27 closed unchanged.
The chemical sector dominated trading with 38m shares traded, while cement and commercial banking followed with 32.1m and 25.9m shares traded.
The stocks opened adding huge 557 points to take the tally to 47117 level in early trading. The Pakistan Stock Exchange dropped most of the early gains but remained in green zone as the benchmark 100-index added 140 points to reach 46700.96 level till midday.
On Thursday, the stocks continued upward momentum, with the benchmark KSE 100-share index gaining 457 points to close at 46,561 points.
After initially trading sideways, the market got back on its feet to make an intraday high of +553 points. Major heavyweights namely HBL (+4.40 percent), OGDC (+0.11 percent), PPL (+0.83 percent), UBL (+2.47 percent), LUCK (+0.16 percent), ENGRO (+0.84 percent) and MCB (+1.51 percent) cumulatively contributed +260 points to the index. However, traded volumes decreased by 14 percent DoD to 233m shares while value traded was down to $110m.
Top volume stocks were BYCO (-1.44 percent), EPCL (+0.87 percent), LOTCHEM (-2.51 percent), ANL (+3.014 percent), PAEL (+4.52 percent). Investors’ confidence once again was seen in the financials and cement sector. From the banking sector, HBL (4.40 percent), UBL (+2.47 percent), MCB (+1.51 percent) and BAFL (+1.00 percent) closed in the green as a pre-budget rally was seen. On the flip side, MLCF (+1.97 percent), DGKC (+1.42 percent), LUCK (+0.16 percent) and FCCL (-0.03 percent) in the cement sector followed the rally as sales numbers for March-2018 recorded 17.3 percent YoY growth to clock in at 4.652m tons, with local sales up 13.5 percent YoY and exports up 85 percent YoY.