KARACHI - The bulls kept dominating Karachi stocks market on Thursday with benchmark, KSE 100-share index gained 21.28 points. The day saw the index closing up by 0.15 percent at 14, 401.74 points against 14, 380.46 points of Wednesday. Pakistan Stocks closed higher amid cautious activity by investors in the lead up to the Supreme Court reaction on NRO judgment implementation, This was viewed by Ahsan Mehanti, Director at Arif Habib Investments Limited.
On Thursday, the trading volumes at the ready-counter were recorded higher at 109.104 million shares against 80.603 million shares of the previous day. The trading value increased to Rs 4.629 billion compared to Rs 2.372 billion of the previous session. The intraday high and low, respectively, stood at 14, 500.61 and 14, 363.24 points.
He added that the profit taking witnessed in the corporate earning announcements session at KSE as global markets uncertainty persists. The market capitalization increased to Rs 3.671 trillion from Rs 3.663 trillion a day earlier. Of the total 360 traded scrips, 163 gained, 109 lost and 88 finished as unchanged.
The free-float KSE-30 index also gained 5.19 points to close at 12, 492.03 points against the previous 12, 486.84 points. D.G.K Cement was the day’s volume leader counting its traded shares at 12.394 million with the opening and closing rates standing at Rs 42.94 and Rs 43.06, followed by Engro Foods Limited, Fauji Cement, NIB Bank Limited and Jahangir Siddiqui Bank Limited with turnover of 7.903 million, 5.508 million, 5.478 million and 5.253 million shares respectively.
According to analyst the institutional support witnessed in blue chip stocks in oil, banking and cement sector on improvement in Pak-US relations and speculations ahead of release of US Coalition Support Fund of $1.5bn. On the future market, the turnover recovered remarkably by over 4 million shares to 9.434 million against 5.782 million shares of Wednesday.
The Rafhan Maize Prod and Nestle Pakistan Limited, up Rs 100.00 and Rs 91.50, led highest price gainers while, UniLever Pakistan and Sanofi-Aventis Pakistan, down Rs 185.19 and Rs 9.55 respectively, led the losers.