Friday witnessed a bullish activity at the Karachi stocks market where the benchmark index hit the intraday high of 14,000 points on the back ofrenewed institutional and foreign interest.
Last trading day of the week saw KSE 100-share index gaining 44.06 points to close at 13,875.53 points against 13,831.47 points of Thursday.
“The stocks closed bullish as KSE 100 crossed the record 14,000 level on intra-day activity,” said Ahsan Mehanti, director at Arif Habib Investments.
The intraday high and low was recorded, respectively, at 14,020.34 and 13,831.12 points.
Mehanti said renewed institutional and foreign interest lead by blue-chip oil and cement stocks led the market on a bull-run ahead of key quarter end earning announcements due next week.
“Report of expected approval of rise in natural gas by 30 percent and hopes for early announcements on revised CGT implementation affected the sentiments,” viewed the analyst.
Other attributable that played as a catalyst for the day’s bullish sentiments at KSE include higher global commodities, rising local and export cement prices and expectations for stronger quarter-end results.
The trading volumes at the ready-counter were recorded at 433.01 million shares against 457.944 million shares of the previous day. The trading value decreased to Rs 7.439 billion against Rs 9.375 billion on Wednesday.
The market capital increased to Rs 3.565 trillion from Thursday’s Rs 3.549 trillion. Of the total 362 traded scrips, 179 gained, 115 lost and 68 finished as unchanged. The free-float KSE-30 index also shed 2.21 points to finish at 12,183.37 points against 12,181.16 points of a day earlier. Dewan Cement appeared as the day’s volume leader by having its traded shares counted at 36.58 million with the opening and closing rates standing, respectively, at Rs 5.72 and Rs 6.70.
The trading volume on the future market also slid to 23.252 million shares compared to 26.382 million shares of Thursday.
