RECORDER REPORT

KARACHI: A positive trend continued on Pakistan Stock Exchange due to select buying, mainly by local investors.

BRIndex100 gained 22.59 points or 0.54 percent to close at 4,230.71 points Wednesday. BRIndex100 touched intraday high of 4,287.08 and intraday low of 4,193.96 points. Volumes stood at 112.609 million shares.

BRIndex30 increased by 165.59 points or 0.8 percent to close at 20,866.48 points with a turnover of 74.266 million shares.

The benchmark KSE-100 index surged by 133.95 points to close at 39,586.76 points. Trading activity however remained low as daily volumes on the ready counter decreased to 128.425 million shares as compared to 167.810 million shares traded Tuesday.

Foreign investors remained net sellers of equities worth $6.2 million. The market capitalization increased by Rs 6 billion to Rs 8.203 trillion. Out of total 344 active scrips, 181 closed positive, 151 negative while the value of 12 stocks remained unchanged.

Fauji Foods was the volume leader with 8.167 million shares. However, it declined by Rs 1.65 to close at Rs 31.48 followed by Pak Elektron that lost Re 0.25 to close at Rs 32.90 with 6.659 million shares.

Indus Motor Co and Sapphire Fiber were the top gainers with Rs 43.36 and Rs 41.65, respectively to close at Rs 1,294.97 and Rs 874.80. Nestle Pakistan and Philip Morris Pak were the top losers with Rs 540.80 and Rs 138.04, respectively to close at Rs 10,400.00 and Rs 2,680.51.

BR Commercial Banks Index increased by 54.52 points or 0.66 percent to close at 8,305.37 points with total turnover of 15.722 million shares.

BR Cement Index gained 20.31 points or 0.49 percent to close at 4,147.09 points with 18.546 million shares.

BR Oil and Gas Index inched up 22.53 points or 0.45 percent to close at 5,081.20 points with 5.627 million shares.

BR Tech. & Comm. Index closed at 1,085.56 points, up 9.61 points or 0.89 percent with 9.209 million shares.

BR Power Generation and Distribution Index surged by 28.94 points or 0.51 percent to close at 5,692.23 points with 6.582 million shares.

An analyst at Arif Habib Limited said that the market had another waivered session where it went high of about 600 points after starting at a negative note with a decline of 240 points. Tuesday’s positive buying and the negative start Wednesday perplexed the retail investors and kept them at bay, which is why when the buying levels increased the volumes were still thin early on. Post increase Wednesday, selling in blue chips DGKC, ASTL, HBL, UBL and Auto sector stocks eroded all the gain of 600 points and the market ended up 134 points.

Scrips that contributed positively include ENGRO (up 55 points), BAHL (up 31 points), BAFL (up 24 points), MCB (up 17 points) and INDU (up 14 points). Stocks that contributed negatively include NESTLE (down 76 points), HBL (down 42 points), PPL (down 38 points), UBL (down 24 points) and DGKC (down 17 points).