ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Stock Exchange on Friday observed a bullish trend as the benchmark KSE-100 Index gained 1,435.34 points amid conviction of the former Pakistan prime minister and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) founder Imran Khan and his wife, Bushra Bibi, in the £190 million graft case.
The stock market closed at 115,272.08 points with a positive change of 1.26 percent.
Overall, 549,584,585 shares were entertained during the day as compared to 469,440,511 shares the last trading day, whereas the price of shares stood at Rs35.931 billion against Rs. 24.981 billion on the previous working day.
As many as 461 companies transacted their shares in the stock market, 264 of them registered gains and 128 met losses, whereas the share price of 69 companies remained unchanged.
The three top trading companies were WorldCall Telecom with 101,934,297 shares at Rs 1.87 per share followed by Hub Power Company with 36,888,747 shares at Rs.137.40 per share whereas Hascol Petrol settled with 32,496,536 shares at Rs.12.90 per share.
Unilever Pakistan Foods Limited witnessed a maximum increase of Rs 398.00 per share closing at Rs 21,998.00 whereas Hoechst Limited was the runner-up with Rs 86.38 rise in its share price to close at Rs.2,819.76.
JDW Sugar Mills Limited witnessed a maximum decline of Rs.36.15 per share price, closing at Rs 889.21, whereas the runner-up was Mehmood Textile Mills Limited with a fall of Rs 25.66 in its per share price to Rs.653.86.
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Buying was observed in key sectors including automobile assemblers, cement, fertilizer, oil and gas exploration companies, OMCs, power generation and refinery. Index-heavy stocks including NRL, PRL, HUBCO, PSO, SNGP, SSGC, MARI, OGDC, ENGRO, HBL and UBL traded in the green.
“We think the market was concerned about the potential release of Imran Khan from jail, which lead to political uncertainty,” said Intermarket Securities.
“Conversions at mutual funds have also slowed down. We think the market will remain range-bound at this stage, until there are fresh new triggers,” it added.
Globally, the tone in global stocks turned weaker on Friday as Asian shares tracked overnight losses on Wall Street. Bond yields slid amid a revival in bets that the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates in June.