The bulls kept dominating Karachi stocks market Friday with trading volumes skyrocketing and the benchmark, KSE 100-share index, gaining 91.44 points on last working day of the week.
The day saw the index closing up by 0.74 percent at 12,495.68 points against 12,404.24 points of Thursday. The analysts at InvestCap Research attribute the current upward trend at the Karachi bourse to the latest progress in the finance minister’s announcement about the rationalization of Capital Gains Tax (CGT). “Despite no change in policy rate, positivity came out after FBR officials visited stock market and CDC to review the CGT collection mechanism,” said Yawar Uz Zaman of InvestCap.
The analyst said the investors took it as a step towards realization of the former finance minister’s promises for equity market reforms. Meanwhile, he said discussions with India on MFN status and trilateral talks between Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan also supported market activity as leading sectors landed in green.
On Friday, the trading volumes at the ready-counter were recorded higher at 233.268 million shares against 205.56 million shares of the previous day. The trading value too surged to Rs7.045 billion compared to Rs4.717 billion of the previous session. The intraday high and low, respectively, stood at 12,611.52 and 12,404.24 points.
The market capitalization grew modestly and increased to Rs 3.257 trillion from Rs 3.233 trillion a day earlier. Of the total 340 traded scrips, 138 gained, 121 lost and 81 finished as unchanged.
The free-float KSE-30 index also gained 99.61 points to close at 11,671.63 points against the previous 11,572.02 points. Jahangir Siddique Company was the day’s volume leader counting its traded shares at 30.603 million with the opening and closing rates, respectively, standing at Rs9.17 and Rs9.41. On the future market, the turnover increased remarkably by over 6 million shares to 13.109 million against 7.946 million shares of Wednesday.
