BULLS THRIVE AT PSX DESPITE INDIA-PAKISTAN TENSIONS

EXHIBITING resilience, Pakistan’s capital market on Tuesday continued with bull-run clearly defying negative sentiments emanating from the escalated tensions with hostile neighboring country India.

Bulls had staged a smart comeback with the opening of the current week clearly shrugging off bears riding war tensions and also in contrast with the global trend of downward corrections. Bullish traders hardly bothered Indian threats of rescinding Most Favored Nation (MFN) status from Pakistan.

“During last week market took a bearish impact of growing tensions between India and Pakistan. It was also apparently siding with the global trends in the wake of financial managers, reportedly, still struggling with the aftermaths of the 2008 financial crisis,” said a trader at the PSX adding that “bulls staging an early comeback this week slightly surprised ordinary investors. You can also call it a patriotic bull-run,” he observed.

During Tuesday’s trading paramount indicator of the country’s capital market Index posted gain of nearly 200 points. Total volume of trade also edged up by

100 million shares during the day as compared to preceding trading session on Monday. Index’s peak during the day was at 40406.91points while it dipped to the level of 40156.84 for intra-day correction perhaps. A total of 306 million shares changed hands during the day as some 353 companies’ share were traded majority of which at 179 went up as against 151 losing values. At the same time shares of 23 companies could not undergo any changed during the session.

Banking sector captured the slot of top-volume stocks as they traded a volume of over 66 million shares during the day. Second in line of the high –volume stocks was Technology and Communications companies’ shares with over 45 million shares during the day.

On top of the top-traded companies was Bank of Punjab with a volume of 41,615,500 while its price per share stood at Rs 13.12 (0.71), followed by Dewan Salman’s 12,005,500 shares at a price of Rs 7.14 (0.11). Third place of highly traded stocks went to Hira Textile with a volume of 9,609,000 that was quoted at Rs 12.50 (0.69).

Top gainers were Sanofi-Aventis with price per share at 1094.15 (52.10), Khyber Tobacco with price per share of 828.00 (38.00) and Colgate PalmoliveXD share of 1587.77 (32.77). The top three losers were Philip Morris Pak. with price per share of 1445.00 (60.39), Murree BreweryXD with price per share of 1035.00 (22.54) and Ismail Industries per share of 403.88 (21.25).