Stocks end at record high; oil shares rise

Stocks closed at record highs on Friday, boosted by a jump in oil prices on OPEC’s recent cut in output, while lower-than-expected inflation number of the last month lifted blue-ship shares.

 “Surge in global crude prices amid OPEC output cut decisions and expected package to boost textile and cement exports played a catalyst role in bullish close,” said analyst Ahsan Mehanti at Arif Habib Corp.

The Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) benchmark KSE-100 shares index gained 363.54 points or 0.85 percent to close at 43,270.90 points. KSE-30 shares index rose 191.6 points or 0.83 percent to end at 23,166.85 points. As many as 416 scrips were active of which 252 advanced, 149 declined and 15 remained unchanged.

The ready market volumes stood at 374.95 million as compared to 504.436 million shares a day earlier.   

Dealers said the cement companies were expected to post record earnings for the quarter as off-take had been phenomenal. Attock Cement up 1.0 percent, D.G Khan Cement up 1.3 percent and Maple Lead Cement surging 1.8 percent were the star performers.   

Textile sector remained in the limelight after the government announced the procedure for providing drawback of local taxes and levies, under the textile package offered in the budget FY17. Gul Ahmed surged 2.9 percent, Kohinoor Textiles gained 3.3 percent and Gadoon Textile rose 0.5 percent.

Analyst Mubashir Anis at Elixir Securities believes oil prices are expected to continue their upward trend in short to medium term, however “the sustainability of the oil price surge would be pinned on response of global production to increase in oil prices.

“Market would track MSCI related new flows. However… the recently concluded real estate regularisation scheme could potentially hamper domestic liquidity flows going forward.”

The National Assembly on Wednesday passed an open-ended tax amnesty scheme. The new tax amnesty scheme is not time-bound and tax evaders can avail it any time in the years to come by paying a nominal 3 percent penalty as ‘advance income tax’, according to the Income Tax Amendment Act 2016.

Companies posting highest gains include Wyeth Pakistan, up Rs169.16 to close at Rs4288.96/share and Khyber Tobacco, up Rs43.25 to close at Rs1130.25/share.

Companies posting major losses include Bata Pakistan, down Rs94.08 to end at Rs4300/share and Island Textile, down Rs55.25 to end at Rs1054.75/share.   

Highest volumes were witnessed in Worldcall Telecom with a turnover of 50.219 million shares. The scrip gained 31 paisas to close at Rs3.19/share. Azgard Nine was second with a turnover of 22.813 million shares. It gained Rs1.0 to end at Rs9.64/share. Bank of Punjab was third with a turnover of 20.29 million shares. It gained 25 paisas to finish at Rs18.89/share.