Stock market closes at new all-time high

LAHORE - The share prices kept on exploring new frontier on the fourth consecutive day, as the political situation had boosted the local investors' confidence, leading to more buying rallies. The Karachi Stock Exchange benchmark 100-index surged by 82 points or 0.5 per cent to close at 15,622 level, a new all-time high on the back of rising confidence among investors in the country's new political set-up, dealers said.

They said that the market had seen an overall gain of 8.1 per cent or 1,269 points since the defeat of President Pervez Musharraf's political allies in general elections on Feb 18.

Three hundred seventy seven scrips were traded and out of these 235 closed in plus column against 114 minus closings having clear upper edge. Improvement in volumes continued and 289.701 million shares were traded.

Earlier the market opened with upward gap of 20.68 points at 15,561.03 points to resume upward trend. Taking small dips here and there market kept on exploring new frontier. Around midday it finally crossed 15,600 points barrier and went up to 15664.91 points high. From that point onwards market passed through intra-day correction. It lost almost 42 points but remained in plus column and kept opening level also. It closed 81.95 points plus at 15622.30 points again a new all time high closing. Market also established all time intra-day high before going for correction.

Market at the moment is ignoring MQM factor but that can cause unrest any moment in Karachi. Other fundamentals are in tact and this quarter financial results have already started pouring in. Analysts hope improved results and projections based on that will attract local as well as foreign investors.

Constantly rising oil prices in international market will increase the earning of oil and gas exploration companies. So market can maintain upwards trend tomorrow.

Free float index opened in plus column and in early hours trading went up to 19104.66 points historic high but failed to hold ground there. It started sliding down but remained in plus column. It closed 47.59 points plus at 18906.33 points.

All shares index also closed at historic high after gaining 61.33 points at 11101.78 points.

NML topped in volumes with traded volumes of 23.012 million shares and closed limit up. Apart from NML almost dozen other scrips namely ANL, CTTL, OIBL, AHBL, SPL, PAKRI, PICT, KTML, MLCF, DFML, PASL and TSBL closed at their upper limit.

The LSE market closed 18.97 points plus at 4847.39 points. Trading was reported in 117 scrips and out of these 44 closed in plus and 18 in minus column while 55 kept last rates. Volumes improved further and 28.744 million shares changed hands in today trading. BAFL topped top ten volumes leaders list with traded volumes of 4.024 million shares.