KARACHI - Pakistan Stock Exchange Friday closed bullish after investors cheered MSCI statement of seeking feedback on reclassifying Pakistan stocks to emerging market status. The benchmark KSE 100-index rallied by 310.62 points to close at 33,449.62 points.
Investor interest was seen in the cement sector as the current government showed its preference towards infrastructure development, as it released Rs387 billion for development projects and Planning Commission proposed Rs1 trillion PSDP allocation in the upcoming budget. In the aforementioned sector, CHCC went up by4.36%, FCCL 2.65% and KOHC rose 4.38%, dealers said.
HASCOL increased 1.22% and PSO by 0.90% after government increased prices of petrol and diesel.
In the steel sector, ASTL (up 2.93%) gained as the company disseminated its progress report on expansion of its ‘Dhabejee’ plant in which it asserted that the progress is on track and the company will accomplish the task by the end of April 2016. Investor interest was seen in both the gas utilities as SNGPL rose 2.67% and SSGC 0.94%, stated analyst Arhum Ghous.
Volumes increased 25% to 204m shares while value remained flat at Rs9.7b/$92m.
MLCF closed 2.9% up after it announced paying its entire Sukuk loan of Rs8bn in 3QFY16 against the agreement repayment schedule till Dec 2018, along with other cement stocks like DGKC and FCCL closing up between range of 1.2% to 3%, brokers said. KOHC closed at 4.3% above as it announced that its waste recovery power plant has been successfully set-up and accordingly has started generating electricity.
Analyst Ahsan Mehanti said cement, auto and fertilizers sectors rallied on expectations of strong results announcements for the quarter. Speculations ahead of SBP policy rate announcements played a catalyst role in bullish close at PSX ignoring weak global equities and falling crude prices.