Stocks closed higher on Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) on Thursday on the back of strong performance by cement, auto and fertilizers sectors.
The market opened in the green zone and surged by over 150 points immediately after opening. But the buying spree proved to be short-lived and the market plunged into the red zone and shed over 200 points. The selling pressure was for a while and index again moved into the green zone and traded there for rest of the day.
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At one point during the trading, the market gained over 500 points on the back of strong across the board buying activity by investors. This led the benchmark KSE 100 index to cross the psychological barrier of 38000 points level. However, the market could not sustain this level owing to last session selling.
The market closed 334.91 points up at 37982 points at the end of the trading. During the trading on Thursday, some 116,454,910 shares changed hands at the market.
Commenting on Thursday’s trading, senior analyst and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Arif Habib Corp Ahsan Mehnati said that bullish activity was witnessed at PSX led by auto, fertilizers and cement scrips on strong valuations.
He said that upbeat comments by Moody’s on IMF programme as credit positive for Pakistan, aiding macroeconomic rebalancing, structural reforms agenda and narrowing current account deficit to 4.6 per cent of GDP by FY19, Govt decision to opt IMF bailout package to meet external account deficit and upbeat data on cement sales, showing 18.9 per cent growth in Sep 2018, played a catalyst role in bullish close.
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On Thursday, trading held in shares of 374 companies out of which share prices of 275 companies increased while the share prices of 89 companies decreased. Whereas the share prices of 10 companies remained unchanged.
Colgate Palm was the market leader in term of per share gain followed by Indus Motors. The share price of Colgate Palm increased by Rs 99.99 per share to close at Rs 2499.99 while the share price of Indus Motor surged by Rs 55.51 to close at Rs 1165.75 per share.
Rafhan Maize was the biggest loser of the day followed by Otsuka Pak. The share price of Rafhan Maize fell by Rs 99 to close at Rs7200 while the share price of Otsuka Pak fell by Rs 13.30 to close at Rs 252.75.
