The Karachi stocks market witnessed another bullish day on Monday with trading volumes peaking to new highs on the back of what market analysts said a follow on of the apex regulator’s confirmation for the implementation of the capital gains tax-related reforms from next month. “The bullish activity witnessed at KSE amid higher trades leading the index to record close as a follow on of apex regulator confirmation for reformed CGT regime implementation from April1,” viewed Ashen Mehanti, a director at Arif Habib Securities.
The first trading day of the week saw the benchmark KSE 100-share index gaining 189.34 points to close at 13,278.31 points as against 13,088.97 points of Friday last week. “The KSE100, as expected, made another positive day with high turnover of 200mn shares. The index managed to post a new high and the highest close for the current uptrend, which is a healthy sign,” commented Abdul Azeem, an analyst at InvestCap. The index was seen hitting the intraday high and low of 13,311.79 points 13,080.83 points.
The total traded shares at the ready-counter were counted at record 295.138 million shares compared to 253.003 million shares of the previous session. The trading value also skyrocketed to Rs8.120 billion from Friday’s Rs6.576 billion.
According to analysts, the factors that played as a catalyst for Monday’s bullish sentiments on the market include retail and institutional interest witnessed on strong valuations in banking, oil and fertiliser stocks, the resumption of gas supplies in fertiliser sector, the easing of circular debt concerns in power sector after electricity tariffs were raised by 39 per cent by the Nepra after a major earning announcements. This was despite “concerns for falling rupee dollar parity and current account deficit,” added Mehanti. The market capital increased to Rs3.441 trillion against Rs3.392 trillion of previous day. Of the total 355 scrips traded, 210 gained, 86 lost while 59 remained unchanged.
The turnover in future contracts also witnessed an upward trend and surged to 17.021 million shares from last week’s 14.310 million shares. Fauji Cement kept dominating the volumes and counted its traded shares at 32.78 million shares each priced at Rs5.03 in the opening and Rs4.89 in the closing.
