Stocks rangebound

Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) witnessed a slight recovery on Wednesday and the benchmark KSE-100 index gained 43 points to close at 32,922 points compared to 32,879 points Tuesday. Ahsan Mehanti, Director at Arif Habib said positive close was witnessed at PSX ahead of quarter-end close led by select scrips across-the-board on strong valuations.
He said trade remained in narrow ranges amid support in cement, auto and pharma stocks on strong results expected for the quarter. "Speculations ahead of SBP policy rate announcements likely next week and recovery in global equities played a catalytic role in positive close at PSX," he added. Analysts at Alternate Research said Pakistan equities witnessed another volatile session Wednesday as index swung both sides but settled on the higher side by accumulating 0.13 percent.
Investors'' participation was also dull as political situation forced them to stay on the fence, they added. After Tuesday''s selling pressure, positivity was seen in fertiliser sector as all stocks closed green except FFC. Investors'' interest was witnessed in engineering, pharmaceutical, and food sector, they maintained.
Index heavy oil sector pushed the index upward as MARI, OGDC, POL, SHEL expanded. A mix trend was seen in power and cement scrips while majority of auto stocks landed in green zone. Traded volume declined slightly by 11 percent to 115 million shares on Wednesday compared to 130 million shares traded on Tuesday. Market capitalisation increased by Rs 38 billion to reach Rs 6.852 trillion up from Rs 6.814 trillion.
Trading took place in 334 scrips, of which 175 closed positive, 130 negative and share prices of some 29 stocks remained unchanged. Sui North Gas, TRG Pak Ltd, Sui South Gas, TPL Trakker Ltd and Dewan Motors were leading scrips with 14.86 million, 7.9 million, 7.3 million, 6.8 million and 3.9 million shares, respectively. Analysts at Topline said some relief was witnessed at the local bourse in expectation of agreement between government and protestors to end the sit-in in the Capital and Karachi and the benchmark KSE-100 index closed at 32,922 points level.
Mari Petroleum''s announcement of another discovery at one of its fields attracted the investor interest in the scrip due to which it closed at its upper limit (up 5 percent). Hascol Petroleum (HASCOL) announced year-end earnings of Rs 9.4 per share along with cash dividend of Rs 3.5 per share. GlaxoSmithKline Pakistan'' stock dropped 1.3 percent on announcement of its results, they said. Philip Morris Pak and Pak Tobacco were the top gainers with Rs 77.75 and Rs 59.85 to close at Rs 1,777.75 and Rs 1,256.85, respectively. Rafhan Maize XD and Service Ind Ltd were the top losers with Rs 170.00 and Rs 12.01 to close at Rs 7,325.00 and Rs 850.00 respectively.