Staff Reporter
Karachi
The encouraging news of a Covid-19 vaccine, helped the KSE-100 index to spike as soon as trading began. The index climbed over 800 points in the first hour. However, political noise combined with rising virus cases across Pakistan wiped off some of the gains. Nevertheless, strong investor sentiment supported the index to close above 41,000 points.
At close, the benchmark KSE-100 index recorded an increase of 369.01 points, or 0.9%, to settle at 41,153.05 points.
TRG Pakistan (-5.4%), Pakistan Refinery (+1.8%), Al Shaheer Corporation (+6.3%) and Unity Foods (-1.4%) led the volumes with a cumulative 97 million shares changing hands throughout the day.
The pharmaceutical sector gained ground on the back of vaccine hopes. GlaxoSmithKline (+3.1%), Ferozsons Laboratories (+0.6%) and AGP Limited (+0.7%) were major gainers of the sector.
The banking sector closed higher where UBL (+5.3%), MCB (+1.1%) and HBL (+0.3%) were the major movers. Pakistan Petroleum (+4.8%), Oil and Gas Development Company (+4%) and Pakistan Oilfields (+4.9%) were the major movers of the exploration and production sector as crude oil prices recovered in the international market.
