Stock market rebounds

KARACHI: Pakistan Stock Exchange on Tuesday witnessed a mixed trend as political and economic uncertainty kept the investors at bay.

The market opened in green zone but selling pressure in various sectors forced it in negative territory. Fresh buying at available attractive low levels at the fag end however supported the market to close on positive note.

The benchmark KSE-100 Index hit 43,646.93 points intraday high and 43,261.98 points intraday low before closing at 43,504.36 points with a net gain of 111.22 points or 0.26 percent.

Trading activity, however remained thin as total daily volumes on ready counter decreased to 233.857 million shares as compared to 305.207 million shares traded on Monday while total daily traded value on ready counter declined to Rs 6.864 billion against previous day’s Rs 9.238 billion.

BRIndex100 inched up by 8.3 points or 0.19 percent to close at 4,329.59 points with total daily turnover of 211.774 million shares.

BRIndex30 increased by 226.63 points or 1.5 percent to close at 15,300.81 points with total daily trading volumes of 152.329 million shares.

The market capitalization increased by Rs 6 billion to Rs 7.220 trillion. Out of total 337 active scrips, 163 closed in negative and 151 in positive while the value of 23 stocks remained unchanged.

Cnergyico PK was the volume leader with 19.092 million shares and gained Rs 0.13 to close at Rs 5.69 followed by Pak Refinery that closed at Rs 15.01, up Rs 0.01 with 13.867 million shares. Pak Int. Bulk inched up by Rs 0.12 to close at Rs 6.15 with 13.196 million shares.

Colgate Palmolive and Nestle Pakistan were the top gainers increasing by Rs 146.86 and Rs 93.76 respectively to close at Rs 2197.86 and Rs 5800.01 while Unilever Foods and Bata Pak were the top losers declining by Rs 213.00 and Rs 159.92 respectively to close at Rs 25,000.00 and Rs 2080.00.

An analyst at Arif Habib Limited said that the market witnessed a rangebound session. PSX opened on the positive note but remained volatile due to continuation of the rupee parity against the USD as political and economic uncertainty kept the investors at bay. The market remained lackluster throughout the day. Main board continued to remain dry whereas hefty volumes were observed in 3rd tier stocks.

Sectors contributing to the performance include Fertilizer (up 40.7 points), Technology (up 27.6 points), OMC’s (up 12.7 points) and Power (up 10.8 points).

BR Automobile Assembler Index decreased by 53.15 points or 0.56 percent to close at 9,519.82 points with total turnover of 934,611 shares.

BR Cement Index lost 27.57 points or 0.6 percent to close at 4,537.10 points with 18.116 million shares.

BR Commercial Banks Index fell by 34.8 points or 0.36 percent to close at 9,682.38 points with 9.675 million shares.

BR Power Generation and Distribution Index gained 22.94 points or 0.43 percent to close at 5,413.96 points with 8.270 million shares.

BR Oil and Gas Index inched up by 13.07 points or 0.36 percent to close at 3,674.31 points with 7.019 million shares.

BR Tech. & Comm. Index increased by 39.77 points or 1.2 percent to close at 3,358.30 points with 40.207 million shares.

Ahsan Mehanti at Arif Habib Corporation said that stocks showed recovery on speculations ahead of the SBP policy announcement and positive outcome of the IMF review meeting due next week.

He said institutional support in selected oversold fertilizer, banking and oil stocks and speculations on likely release of $1.0 billion IMF tranche under $8.0 billion EFF played a catalyst role in positive close.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2022