Karachi: After a breather on Thursday, the bulls returned with a vengeance on Friday so that the KSE-100 index galloped by 183.61 points to close at 26,913.85 points.
The activity was again dominated by the second and third tier scrips, though foreign investors were major buyers who added $5.29 million worth of stocks to their portfolio.
Over the week, the foreign inflows stood at $7.6 million, while net inflows in the month to date amounted to $5.35m. The market took note of the fact that local institutions and particularly individuals had taken the initiative from the foreign investors, who had been at the head of rally so far.
Overall, weekly reports indicated that the index jumped by 418 points or 1.6 per cent WoW.
Some analysts said that cement stocks came under pressure for fear of hike in SBP discount rate, which would have been negative for the highly leveraged cement companies. Red was splashed all over the cement sector.
Conversely, commercial banks were picked up by investors as they would have profited by the increase in discount rate. But the SBP announcement of ‘no change’ which came after the close of the market was thought to reverse the trend on Monday.
