KARACHI: Bulls controlled the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) on the first trading session of the week, as the indices headed north right from the word go, helping with the KSE-100 Index surge over 700 points.
Foreign investors closed the previous week (Dec 9-13) as net sellers with a net outflow of $9.05 million.
Appreciating by 782.45 points, the KSE-100 Index flew to its intraday high at 41,699.04. It ended higher by 728.29 points at 41,644.88. The KMI-30 Index surged by 2.55pc or 1,661.71 points to close at 66,811.60, while the KSE All Share Index accumulated 551.75 points, settling at 29,871.91. Out of the total traded shares, 255 advanced, 100 declined while the value of 22 remained unchanged.
The overall market volume was recorded at 357.79 million, while the total traded value stood at Rs13.99 billion. Hascol Petroleum Limited Right Shares (HASCOLR1 +7.90pc), Unity Foods Limited (UNITY +2.93pc) and Sui Southern Gas Company Limited (SSGC +4.86pc) were the volume leaders of the day, exchanging 53.28 million, 31.39 million and 16.07 million shares, respectively.
Sectors that added maximum points to the benchmark KSE-100 Index included oil and gas exploration (+221.40 points), banking (+162.38 points) and cement (+57.04 points). Among the companies, Pak Petroleum Limited (PPL +96.84 points), Habib Bank Limited (HBL +79.36 points) and Oil and Gas Development Company Limited (OGDC +66.07 points) remained the top contributors to the index.
The oil and gas exploration sector emerged as the top gainer (+3.67pc) on Monday. Pak Petroleum Limited (PPL +5.00pc), Pakistan Oilfields Limited (POL +3.23pc) and Mari Petroleum Company Limited (MARI +2.19pc) closed with decent gains.
Meanwhile, the technology sector added 1.45pc to its cumulative market capitalization. Avanceon Limited (AVN +4.98pc), Systems Limited (SYS +2.47pc), TRG Pakistan Limited (TRG +1.24pc) and Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTC +1.24pc) landed in the green zone.
