KARACHI: The stock market gained 341 points on Friday as investors hoped tax incentives in the upcoming budget. The benchmark KSE-100 index closed at 45,915 points as against previous day’s closing of 45,574 points, showing an increase of +341 points.
Analysts at Arif Habib Limited said that resolution of dispute between the members of ruling party as well as anticipation of tax incentives for the industries in the upcoming budget helped KSE100 index put up a formidable addition of 374 points during the session and ended the session +341 points.
Deferral of OGDC and PPL for consideration of privatization resulted in a rebound in stock prices of both stocks.
Banks, Cement and Steel sectors also contributed positively to the Index. The incentives proposal for the refinery sector gave way to NRL, ATRL and PRL to post gains. Among volumes leaders, WTL led the table with 99.2 million shares, followed by BYCO (67.5 million) and HASCOL (48.3 million).
Sectors contributing to the performance include Banks (+116 points), E& (+68 points), Cement (+31 points), O&GMCs (+29 points) and Autos (+29 points).
Volumes declined slightly from 784 million shares to 710.4 million shares (-10 percent DoD). Average traded value also declined by 6 percent to reach US$ 128.2 million as against US$ 135.7 million.
Stocks that contributed significantly to the volumes include WTL, BYCO, HASCOL, KEL and SMBL, which formed 41 percent of total volumes.
Stocks that contributed positively to the index include HBL (+32 points), PPL (+31 points), OGDC (+28 points), UBL (+25 points) and PSO (+20 points). Stocks that contributed negatively include HASCOL (-8 points), PIBTL (-6 points), COLG (-4 points), TRG (-4 points) and PSX (-4 points).
