Zubair Yaqoob
Karachi
Market moved up significantly by 820pts, primarily due to year end closing that requires financial institutions to manage the equity portfolios to avoid impairments. Buying activity was observed across the board, but focusing on Oil & Gas chain, including E&P sector stocks that showed OGDC trading near upper circuit.
Similarly, price gains were observed in Refinery and OMCs sectors. Banking sector was no different with major performance from HBL and UBL. Technology sector led the volumes with 33.6M shares followed by O&GMCs (27.7M) and Vanaspati (27.2M).
Among scrips, UNITY saw trading volumes of 27.2M, followed by WTL (21M) and HASCOLR (17.8M). The Index closed at 41,128pts as against 40,328pts showing an increase of 800pts (+2% DoD). Sectors contributing to the performance include Banks (+360pts), E&P (+140pts), O&GMCs (+54pts), Power (+44pts) and Inv Banks (+35pts). Volumes showed slight increase from 236.2mn shares to 236.8mn shares (+0.3% DoD).
Average traded value also declined by 10% to reach US$ 51.3mn as against US$ 56.5mn. Stocks that contributed significantly to the volumes include UNITY, WTL, HASCOLR1, FFL and TRG, which formed 38% of total volumes.
