karachi
Stocks closed higher amid higher trades led by selected stocks across the board on strong valuations despite concerns for terror attacks in the country.
At local equity market, benchmark 100-share index posted a fresh gain of 68.20 points or 0.23 per cent to end the day at 29540.72 after opening at 29472.52 points of the previous day.
Ahsan Mehanti, analyst at Arif Habib Corp, said rising local cement dispatches over 3m tons in May’14, MARI new market based gas pricing approval, renewed foreign interest in oil stocks and improved urea off take data for May’14 played a catalyst role in positive close at KSE. KSE-allshare went up 16.91 points or 0.08 percent to finish the trading at 21850.41 points, KSE-30 gained 30.67 points or 0.15 per cent to stop the trading at 20243.37 points while KMI-30 increased by 456.45 points or 0.97 percent to conclude the session at 47651.12 points. Bourse traded 232.402m shares after opening at 132.973m shares and the value of traded shares climbed to Rs 11.061b from Rs 8.313b. The capitalization of the stock market settled at Rs 7.001 trillion compared to Rs 6.996.
A dealer said selective stock picking by financial institutions helped market to recover. Institutional interest in KEL and NBP helped them post gains with healthy volumes. Cement stocks also remained in limelight with LUCK closing at upper circuit limit. Some profit taking was seen in UBL ahead of its book building.
Out of 363 active companies, 167 closed in green and 165 companies declined while the values of 363 stocks remained intact. Nestle Pak was the biggest price loser of the day, down by Rs 202.38 to Rs 8127, followed by Siemens Pakistan, off by Rs 47 to Rs 1353. Wyeth Pak Ltd and Pak Tobacco were the top price gainers of the day, up by Rs 124 to Rs 4349.99 and Rs 46.50 to Rs 1336.50. KEL led the volume with 32.535m shares, gained Re 0.50 to Rs 8.86. FCCL was the second highest on volume chart with 15.884m shares, grew by Re 0.52 to Rs 20.72. It was followed by Sui North with 14.933m shares, up Re 0.86 to Rs 24.04, National Bank with 12.833m shares, higher by Re 0.56 to Rs 59.21, and Sui South with 11.251m shares, added Rs 1.26 to Rs 33.90.