Bulls on rampage as KSE-100 Index breaks 40,000 barrier

The Pakistan Stock Exchange got a big boost on Tuesday as the KSE-100 Index jumped to 40,292.82 after gaining 490.22 points, thus crossing the 40,000 points psychological barrier gain.

Earlier on Monday, the KSE-100 Index was up by 181.01 points and closed at 39,802.60 on Monday after a poor show last week as the Pakistan Stock Exchange started the new business week on a positive note.

Since recording the biggest sustained profitable streak of the year in July when the KSE-100 gained 4,836.92 points and closed at 39,258.44, it had moved up by only 421.14 points till Monday. However, the latest gains mean the index is up by 911.36 this month.
Earlier on August 15, the index had reached the level of 40,559.15 but the losses suffered since then meant that it fell below the 40,000 mark after that.
In fact, the last business week ending Friday saw the KSE-100 Index shedding 669.15 points, thus erasing a huge chunk of the gains earlier made this month.
On Tuesday, a total of 273,138,373 shares were traded. With 364 companies available for trading, the share prices of 238 of these made gains, 107 were down and 19 remained unchanged.
The top three gainers in terms of share prices were First National Bank Modaraba, Modaraba al-Mali and Nazir Cotton Mills Limited whose value was up by 16.28 percent, 14.55 percent and 12.61 percent respectively.
Meanwhile, the most active stock during the session was Hascol Petroleum Limited with the trading of 50,392,000 shares.
However, the worst performer was Jubilee Spinning and Weaving Mills Limited as its share price was down by 7.88 percent. It was followed by 786 Investment Limited and Frontier Ceramics Limited with 7.49 percent and 7.32 percent respectively. 
The positive performance by the market on Tuesday was a result of the strong showing in automobile, cement, chemical, engineering, oil and gas as well as power generation and distribution sectors.