Stock market advances

KARACHI: Pakistan Stock Exchange Tuesday witnessed a bullish trend on the back of aggressive buying in almost all sectors.

The market opened on a positive note and remained in green zone throughout the session with increased trading activity. The benchmark KSE-100 Index increased by 167.44 points or 0.39 percent and closed at 42,928.63 points. The index crossed 43,000 psychological level, however it failed to sustain this momentum due to profit-taking in some stocks.

Trading activity also improved as daily volumes increased to 195.973 million shares as compared to 132.942 million shares traded on Monday while total daily traded value on ready counter increased to Rs 6.789 billion to previous session’s Rs 4.579 billion.

BRIndex100 gained 20.63 points or 0.48 percent to close at 4,330.21 points with total daily turnover of 159.941 million shares.

BRIndex30 inched up by 39.06 points or 0.24 percent to close at 16,257.81 points with total daily trading volumes of 119.069 million shares.

Foreign investors also remained net buyers of shares worth $341,077. The market capitalization increased by Rs 13 billion to Rs 6.836 trillion. Out of total 338 active scrips, 171 closed in positive and 138 in negative while the value of 29 stocks remained unchanged.

WorldCall Telecom was the volume leader with 18.585 million shares however lost Rs 0.02 to close at Rs 1.39 followed by TLP Properties that increased by Rs 1.40 to close at Rs 20.15 with 18.514 million shares. Hascol Petroleum gained Rs 0.18 to close at Rs 7.98 with 15.396 million shares.

Allawasaya Textile and Mehmood Textile were the top gainers increasing by Rs 181.38 and Rs 60.60 respectively to close at Rs 2599.88 and Rs 868.60 while Sapphire Fiber and Thal Ind. Corp were the top losers declining by Rs 89.99 and Rs 12.99 respectively to close at Rs 1140.01 and Rs 260.01.

“A positive session was witnessed at the PSX due to the inclusion of 04 companies of KSE-100 Index in Morgan Stanley Capital International (MSCI) Frontier Market Pakistan,” an analyst at Arif Habib Limited said.

The KSE-100 Index opened in a positive zone and while driven by the bulls gained 315 points. Investor’s sentiments were improved in comparison to the previous few sessions owing to the positive news and hence comparatively better volumes were observed today in market. Main board volumes comparatively improved today; whereas decent volumes have been observed in the third tier stocks today as well.

Sectors contributing to the performance include Fertilizer (up 61.1 points), Technology and Communication (up 52.9 points), Cement (up 21.8 points), Commercial Banks (up 12.6 points) and Inv. Banks/Inv Cos/Securities Cos (up 11.8 points).

BR Automobile Assembler Index gained 29.04 points or 0.33 percent to close at 8,878.99 points with total turnover of 2.723 million shares.

BR Cement Index added 29.51 points or 0.66 percent to close at 4,499.48 points with 6.685 million shares.

BR Commercial Banks Index inched up by 18.81 points or 0.22 percent to close at 8,498.25 points with 14.949 million shares.

BR Power Generation and Distribution Index lost 9.19 points or 0.13 percent to close at 6,923.02 points with 5.355 million shares.

BR Oil and Gas Index closed at 3,885.63 points, down 4.08 points or 0.1 percent with 27.558 million shares.

BR Tech. & Comm. Index increased by 50.86 points or 1.06 percent to close at 4,831.06 points with 40.833 million shares.

Ahsan Mehanti at Arif Habib Corporation said that stocks closed higher on speculations ahead of SBP policy announcement this week.

He said upbeat data on current account deficit narrowing by 47 percent for July-October 2022 and FM assurance over settlement of maturing Sukuk dollar bonds next month played a catalyst role in bullish close.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2022