RECORDER REPORT

KARACHI: Led by blue chips, stocks ended at an all-time high of 39,435 points Tuesday to add 288 points to 39,147 points of last session. The benchmark index showed volatility to hit the intraday high and low of 39,590 and 39,130, respectively.

Trading turnover surged to 224 million shares the value of which appreciated to Rs13.26 billion. Of the 361 scrips traded, 161 posted gains, 173 lost their worth and that of 27 stayed unchanged.

The market capital accumulated to Rs7.86 trillion as foreign portfolio investment registered net buying of $ 2.36 million.

Dewan cement was the day’s most-traded issue with 25 million trading turnover. The cement maker dipped to Rs15.55 at close after opening the day from Rs16.55. other best performing stocks were Dewan Motors, Agritech Limited, SSGC, TRG Pakistan, SNGPL, Byco Petroleum, Pak Elektron, KE and PIBT.

Futures trade declined to 81.8 million contracts from the previous 87.1 million.

“Stocks closed all-time high led by blue chip banks, cement and oil scrips on strong valuations,” said Ahsan Mehanti at Arif Habib Corp.

He said investor speculations ahead of major earning announcements this week, foreign inflows, strong results in the banking, fertilizers sector and improving Pak-Us relations played a catalyst role in record close at PSX.

Hammad Aman of Topline Securities said the day’s record surge was led by banks and cements.

FFC announced EPS of Rs2.2 with cash dividend of Rs1.55/share. “The result was above street consensus which led the stock price to gain by 0.4 percent,” he said.

Heavyweights such as HBL, LUCK and UBL contributed 153 points to the gain combined, he said.