Daily Times

KARACHI: On the back of continued MSCI euphoria the bulls at Pakistan Stock market remained on the driving seat for the third consecutive day on Wednesday by scaling all time high level and recording year to date highest ever trading volume. The benchmark KSE-100 index gained further 729.49 points, or 1.40 per cent to hit another all time high of 52,876.46 level.

The KSE-100, in volatile trading session, increased by 956 points taking the index to an intra-day high of 53103.21 points. Since May 2016 the KSE 100 Index has recorded 45 percent upsurge.

Energy sector contributed most to gains on buying interest from institutional investors where a higher global crude also lifted sentiments; Oil & Gas Development Company closed higher for second consecutive session and contributed most to day’s gains while Pakistan Petroleum stood next in line and closing highest in last four months, Ali Raza, equity analyst at Elixir Securities commented.

Index point leaders were DAWH (+5%), BAHL (+5%), PPL (+4.6%), OGDC (+3.6%) & MCB (+2.1%), with positive contribution of 292pts, while PICT (-6.7%), ACPL (-4%), JDWS (-2%), SEARL (-0.6%) & HCAR (-0.9%) eroded 25pts from the index.

Financials also remained in limelight as notable index names including Habib Bank, United Bank and MCB Bank +2.1% closed with handsome gains.

On the sector front, banks added 222 points, Oil & Gas Exploration 156 points and fertilizer 87.5 points.

Wednesday’s session recorded the highest year-to-date trading volume of 607 million shares (last high of 695 million shares was on November 2, 2016), up 87 percent d/d. Traded value surged 21 percent to Rs 24 billion/$226 million.

Shares of 420 companies were traded out of which 188 closed in green and 215 in red while 17 remained unchanged.

On volume leaders’ chart the Power Cement topped with 124 million shares followed by Bank of Punjab with 90.94 million, Lotte Chemical with 36.25 million, and Power Cement with 14.50 million shares.

Analysts expect the ongoing bullish momentum to continue with institutional flows primarily from foreign investors in index names pushing the benchmark KSE100 Index to new highs above 53,000 before the MSCI transition day.

Notice: In the context of the impending MSCI upgrade of Pakistan into “Emerging Market” status, the management of Exchange has notified process for determination of closing prices of stocks.

Closing price determination timing: “Closing Price” for all shares shall be determined over last two hours of the regular market session on the basis of Volume Weighted Average Price (VWAP) as against the current practice of last 30 minutes. This change will be only for a limited period i.e. from May 26, 2017 till June 02, 2017 only. As such, this is a temporary measure purely to facilitate expected large number of transactions in the transition to MSCI – EM Index.