Stocks near 33-month high in voluminous trade

Stocks on Wednesday extended gains to make it to a near 33-month high in copious trade, mainly betting on rich corporate results and hopes of big industry revival following upbeat manufacturing data, dealers said.

Benchmark KSE-100 shares index ended 0.37 percent or 169.92 points higher to close at 46,091.96 points at Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX).

Volumes increased to 845.282 million shares from 825.893 million on Tuesday. KSE-30 shares index was up 0.39 percent or 74.02 points to end at 19,286.15 points.

Muhammad Saeed Khalid, head of research at Shajar Capital, said the market remained robust and performed well above the 46,000 points, marking an intraday high of 393 points, mainly on the expected approval of Textile Policy FY25 the ECC.

He said investors also bought heavily in energy sector on crude strength, while start of EURO-V and EURO-VI production by Byco and other refineries and expected rise in corporate sector profitability for 1HFY21 also kept the sentiment high.

In addition to this, bullish activity was also noticed in the banking sector where the revival of dividend income restored some investor confidence in the sector, Khalid added.

Topline Securities in a report said investor interest was mostly witnessed in cement and steel

sectors on the back of Large

Scale Manufacturing (LSM) numbers, up 1.35 percent month-on-month and 14.46 percent year-on-year in November 2020.

Resultantly PIOC, LUCK, MLCF, and INIL closed higher;

further, financials followed suit where HBL, MCB and BAHL were major gainers, Topline report added.

Salman Ahmad, head of institutional sales at Aba Ali Habib Securities, said the market noticed fresh positions in all industrial sector companies as profit numbers based on quarter-to-quarter table were bode well.

Furthermore, sharp surge in crude prices helped local oil and exploration stocks help the index comfortably land on positive territory, Ahmad added.

As many as 437 scrips were active on Wednesday, of which 237 went up, 183 down, and 17 remained unchanged.

Umair Naseer from BMA Equity Sales said on the economic front, positive news flow continued to excite investors as LSM grew 14.5 percent year-on-year in November 2020, whereas for July-Nov, it was up 7.4 percent, which was better than expectations.

“We continue to remain bullish in the market as any profit-taking should be seen as an opportunity to buy,” Naseer added.

Ahsan Mehanti from Arif Habib Corporations said stocks closed bullish with record trades in the earnings season led by selected scrips across the board on upbeat LSM data for November 2020, rupee stability, and global equity bull-run.

Surging global crude oil, upbeat data for auto, POL, and cement sales for July-December 2020 kept the index upwardly mobile, Mehanti added.

Nestle Pakistan, up Rs74.60 to close at Rs6,735/share, and Sapphire Fibre, strengthening by Rs68 to finish at Rs988/share, posted highest gains.

Colgate Palmolive, down Rs100 to close at Rs3100/share, and Bhanero Textile, losing Rs66.55 to close at Rs858.44/share, recorded the worst losses.

In terms of volume, K-Electric Limited was in lead with 110.622 million shares, but lost Rs0.23 to end at Rs4.27/share.

Maple Leaf’s trade was the thinnest with 19.546 million shares, but it gained Rs0.91 to end at Rs44.29/share.