KARACHI: Bulls completely dominated the stock market on Thursday where the KSE-100 index rallied by 342.95 points (0.98 per cent) to close at all-time high 35,186.56.

The strong demand for stocks did not let the index fall even once below the day’s opening.

The index breached the psychological barrier of 35,000-level and touched intraday high of 35,236.34.

Market participants attributed the investors’ interest to several factors including positive expectations for June quarter results of leading companies; low inflation numbers; foreign exchange reserves which according to finance minister has reached a record level of $18.5bn as of July 1; and ample liquidity in the market.

Traded volume increased to 406 million shares of Rs16.1 billion value.

Major activity was witnessed in mid-tier stocks like NIB Bank, Byco Petroleum, Pace Pakistan, Telecard.

According to analysts at brokerage Sunrise Capital, cement sector remained in the spotlight with the highest volume of over 80m shares, followed by commercial banks 65m shares and technology and communication sector 55m shares.

Foreigners bought $2.41m worth stocks with major inflows in banking, fertiliser and cement sectors.

Dealers on the trading desk of Topline Securities observed that the cement sector witnessed increased trading activity in anticipation of a hike in cement prices.

Lucky Cement, Fauji Cement, and DG Khan Cement gained 3.4pc, 3pc and 3pc, respectively.

Analyst Ahsan Mehanti at Arif Habib Corp stated that stocks closed at all-time high on strong institutional interest in blue-chip scrips after Consumer Price Index data for June 2015 clocked at 3.16pc year-on-year, lower than market expectations.

Published in Dawn, July 3rd, 2015

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