KARACHI: Pakistan Stock Exchange Tuesday witnessed a mixed trend and after moving both ways, closed on a positive note on the back of buying by local investors.
BRIndex100 gained 5.74 points or 0.14 percent to close at 4,191.49 points. BRIndex100 hit intraday high of 4,223.65 and intraday low of 4,183.00 points. Volumes stood at 399.017 million shares.
BRIndex30 inched up by 50.75 points or 0.23 percent to close at 21,722.57 points with a turnover of 273.555 million shares.
The KSE-100 Index increased by 61.51 points or 0.15 percent to close at 40,184.01 points. Trading activity remained low as daily volumes on the ready counter decreased to 458.803 million shares as compared to 522.652 million shares traded Monday.
Foreign investors remained on selling side and withdrew $2.334 million from the equity market. The market capitalization increased by Rs 9 billion to Rs 7.460 trillion. Out of total 400 active scrips, 196 closed in negative, 184 in positive while the value of 20 stocks remained unchanged.
Pak Int. Bulk Terminal was the volume leader with 35.581 million shares. It gained Re 0.45 to close at Rs 12.51 followed by Pak Refinery that inched up by Re 0.41 to close at Rs 16.72 with 27.569 million shares.
Sapphire Textile and Gatron Ind. were the top gainers with Rs 25.00 and Rs 15.00, respectively to close at Rs 850.00 and Rs 630.00. Rafhan Maize and Unilever Foods were the top losers with Rs 175.00 and Rs 100.00, respectively to close at Rs 8,000.00 and Rs 9,700.00.
BR Automobile Assembler Index decreased by 63.55 points or 0.78 percent to close at 8,051.98 points with total turnover of 7.654 million shares.
BR Cement Index surged by 160.03 points or 2.93 percent to close at 5,616.68 points with 75.974 million shares.
BR Commercial Banks Index fell by 52.48 points or 0.64 percent to close at 8,159.45 points with 27.634 million shares.
BR Power Generation and Distribution Index lost 13.98 points or 0.27 percent to close at 5,109.19 points with 48.815 million shares.
BR Oil and Gas Index inched up by 6.18 points or 0.15 percent to close at 4,161.39 points with 51.271 million shares.
BR Tech. & Comm. Index closed at 1,626.05 points, down 35.24 points or 2.12 percent with 39.581 million shares. An analyst at Arif Habib Limited said that the market opened on a positive note with plus 224 points and added a total of 312 points on the index during the session.
E&P and Cement sectors largely played a major role in positive activity. Banks and Fertilizer sectors, on the other hand, contributed to selling pressure on the index. International crude oil prices have been stable for quite some time now, which have helped Investors take a long term view on E&P stocks thereby giving continual ascent to the underlying scrips.
Cement sector stocks performed on the back of a stay that one of the cement companies obtained against the probe on a recent increase in cement prices. Cement sector led the volumes on the bourse with 83 million shares, followed by Power (48.8 million shares) and O&GMCs (45.8 million shares).
Sectors contributing to the performance include Cement (up 120 points), E&P (up 21 points), Pharma (up 12 points), Banks (down 64 points), Fertilizer (down 18 points) and Technology (down 17 points).
Stocks that contributed positively to the index include LUCK (up 33 points), DGKC (up 31 points), CHCC (up 23 points), OGDC (up 14 points) and BAHL (up 14 points). Stocks that contributed negatively include UBL (down 28 points), HBL (down 25 points), TRG (down 18 points), PSO (down 15 points) and ENGRO (down 11 points).
Copyright Business Recorder, 2020