KARACHI, Feb 8: After taking a break for a day, bulls began the charge with new vigour on Friday, tossing the KSE-100 up by 94.62 points to its fresh all-time high of 17,477.94 points.

On intra-day basis, the index mounted to just a fraction lower than the 17,500 points level at 17,499.63 points.

Investor sentiments could not be dampened by an unsavoury city situation as most eyes were focused on the SBP Monetary Policy Statement. The policy rate was kept unchanged at 9.5 per cent, which was what most analysts were predicting.

There was no hustle and bustle on the political and the judiciary arena, which has been noted in the past to impact investor’s interest in equity trading.

“The small loss in index by 25 points on Thursday was logical as investors were expected to book profit after the heavy gain of 120 points on Wednesday.”

Although lower than the last two days, the volume of business on Friday stood tall at 269 million shares, compared with 311 shares traded on Thursday.

As some heavy-weight stocks also attracted investor interest, the trading value also rose to Rs5.417 billion, from Rs5.067 billion the previous day. But the activity was still seen to be concentrated in the low-priced stocks.

Net foreign inflow on Friday stood at $0.76 million, which added to the earlier days net purchases of $3.92 million, carried the overseas investors’ equity investment to $1.92 million for February. The foreign interest in Pakistani equity is worth watching from the start of the year, with net buy of $15.42m worth stocks in January.

Hasnain Asghar Ali, analyst at Escorts Capital stated that fresh flows mainly in oil and gas exploration and production (E&P) stocks that was quite evident from early trade guided the benchmark to yet another historic high.

Announcement of the signing of Share Purchase Agreement (SPA) between Army Welfare Trust and Fauji Foundation for transfer of majority share holdings did invite hefty buying in the stock, which besides leading the turnover on renewed buying interest influenced the market sentiment.

Equity Dealer, Samar Iqbal at Topline Securities commented that in spite of market consensus that the SBP was unlikely to change policy rate, investors preferred to buy stocks in anticipation of better earnings and payouts.

Askari Bank with a volume of 25m shares remained in the limelight after Fauji group announced that they will take over the bank at a substantial premium to the market price. Telecom remained under focus in anticipation of better results due to higher international calling rates.

Market capitalisation rose to Rs4.379tr on Friday, from Rs4.348tr on Thursday. In all, 345 stocks came up for trading, with gaining stocks at 212, almost twice the losers at 109.

On the active list, Askari Bank saw the highest volume of 25m shares, up by 99 paisa to Rs19.69. Jah Sidd Co rose by Re1 to Rs18.04 on 20m shares, WorldCall Telecom edged higher by seven paisa to Rs3.62 on 20m shares, Telecard was up by 28 paisa to Rs4.97 on 19m shares, TRG Pakistan jumped by 60 paisa to Rs8.42 on 17m shares and PTCL added 54 paisa to Rs20 on 17m shares.

Wateen Telecom was firmer by 13 paisa to Rs3.80 on 10m shares, Pace (Pak) was up by 35 paisa to Rs3.71 on 10m shares, Sui Northern Gas rose by 83 paisa to Rs24.90 on 9m shares and Engro Foods gained another Rs4 in the unstinted rally, the stock price climbing to Rs121.35 on 7m shares.