Daily Times

KARACHI: The KSE-100 Index continued to remain bullish throughout the session Thursday as value hunters rushed to cherry pick ahead of the elections. The index gained 897.69 points to close at 41,795.59 points level.

Institutional buying kept the momentum alive in the index heavyweights with Cements and Steels hitting the upper circuit today. Besides, Financials, Chemicals and Explorations and Productions (E&Ps) registered significant jump in traded volumes. Engro Polymer & Chemicals EPCL PA gained 4.9 percent following the announcement of long term / short term credit ratings upgrade to AA- / A1+ from A+ / A1+ by local rating agency.

“With index up 4.6 percent in two consecutive trading sessions, we recommend investors to reduce position on strength going forward and wait till the outcome of general election (to be held next week) as current vulnerable economic position is likely to remain the center piece of policy level issues for the newly elected government”, said Elixir Securities analyst M. Zain ul Abedin.

Banking stocks like Habib Bank Limited (HBL) with 2.86 percent increase, and United Bank Limited (UBL) with 3.84 increase gained the most as they had previously reached attractive levels.

Apart from these Banks, Cement stocks and Rebar manufacturers like DG Khan Cement, Pioneer Cement, Maple Leaf Cement, Aisha Steel Mills and Mughal Steel too outperformed the Index due to their attractive levels.

Traded volumes increased by 36 percent to 337.1 million shares traded against 247.8 million shares traded in previous day’s session while value traded too increased by 62.5 percent to Rs 13.1 billion. Volume leaders were K-Electric with 22.7 million shares traded, Lotte Chemical with 21.1 million shares traded and Pak Intnl Bulk with 20.3 million shares traded. The advance to decline ratio in the broader market remained in the favor of bulls, total 376 scrips participated, 276 of them advanced, 83 declined while 17 scrips remained unchanged.

Published in Daily Times, July 20^th 2018.