KARACHI – Heavy buying on the part of local institutional investors helping the KSE-100 index gain 146 points at the close of trading. Healthy earnings expectation in index heavy OGDC, garnered support from local institutions at lower levels as scrip outperformed the index. Interest in oil and gas sector turned in favor of bulls as the market gained 146 points in today’s session with slightly better volumes of 73 million shares.
The result season has finally provided some impetus as most bellwether stocks with better earnings expectation gained investors support including NBP, POL, FFC, PTC whilst FFBL came out as the top volume leader. The rally has likely halted the downturn as resilient corporate earnings have provided some support. The KSE-100 index closed at 11745.06 with the gain of 145.78 points and total volume stood at 58,118,480 along with the total value of 3,899,302,750. KSE-30 index gained 162.94 points to close at 11,444.95 points, and All Share Index closed at 8,210.90 with the gain of 97.54 points.
A total of 175 scrips advanced, 103 declined and 99 remain unchanged out of a total of 377 scrips traded. OGDC remained in the limelight, jumping 2.1 percent after witnessing massive offloading by foreign funds in the last two trading sessions. POL and PPL followed, gaining 2.1 percent and 1.9 percent respectively due to market rumors that local funds buying. Fertilizer advance was led by FFBL which gained 2.6% over expectations of better 1Q earnings followed by decent gains in FFC and Engro. NRL was the pick among the refining sector stocks edging up 1.7 percent as it posted better than expected earnings and fuelled hopes of improved payout in the last quarter.
Top gainers of today’s session were IGI Insurance Limited, TRG Pakistan, Agritech Limited, Pak Suzuki Motor, Pakistan Telephone Cables, Standard Chartered Bank, and Fauji Fertiliser Bin Qasim. Top losers included Murree Brewery Company, Pakistan Refinery, Media Times, GlaxoSmithKline (Pak), Pakistan Cables, Nestle Pakistan and Pak Reinsurance Company.
