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Bulls stage comeback on LSE

Recorder Report

Lahore: After a day's break, bulls staged a comeback in the Lahore Stock Exchange (LSE) here on Wednesday as the investors celebrated the statement of US President Bill Clinton that Pakistan was not involved in the recent hijacking of an Indian plane.

The LSE-101 share index moved up by 5.41 points to close at 413.12 points as against 407.71 points of Tuesday. The volume descended to 86.147 million shares from 97.076 million shares a day earlier, depicting a decrease of 10.928 million shares.

Following President Clinton's statement, the market opened on a healthy note. But it soon started showing weakness because of uncertainty with regard to the issue of judges' oath-taking issue under the PCO. However, as soon as the news that the oath-taking ceremonies had concluded smoothly it started recovering during the first trading session.

In the subsequent hours, it kept on bouncing up and down. However, it was moving in the positive territory when the closing bells rang. At the final bells, there were more advances than declines.

A particular feature of the day was that unlike the past few days, there was no rumour in the market, except uncertainty among the players arising out of the issue of oath-taking of judges under the PCO, said a leading market analyst.

Meanwhile, the recent cut in the interest rates and reports about the privatisation PTCL, SNGPL, etc., have also given a boost to the market. Besides, there are also chances of institutional buying, which would add to the bullishness of the market, he said. In this perspective, the market outlook for the near future seems to be rosy, he said.

As the market has been showing volatility in its behaviour for the last few days, it is not advisable to take new positions at this stage, said another expert, adding that it is better to be on the sidelines during the running week.

There were 35 gainers against 34 losers, while 70 stayed glued to their overnight levels, out of a total of 139 scrips that exchanged hands during the day.

Adamjee Insurance was up by Rs 4.50, while Pakistan Synthetics gained Rs 2.50, Lease Pak Limited Rs 2.25, Packages Limited Rs 2.00, MCB Rs 1.50, Kohinoor Energy 90 paisa and Sui Northern 30 paisa.

In the losers' column, Shell Pakistan was down by Rs 5.00, PSO Rs 2.90,

Sui Southern Rs 1.10, Nishat Mills 65 paisa and Maple Leaf Cement 60 paisa.

The PTCL continued to lead the market with a total transacted turnover of 71.225 million shares followed by the PSO with 3.588 million shares and ICI with a volume of 2.809 million shares.