Pakistan stocks witnessed another volatile session, as the benchmark KSE-100 Index swayed both ways before finishing in the green with a slight gain of 0.23% on Tuesday.

The volume of shares traded on the all-share index increased to over 187 million.

At close, the KSE-100 settled with a gain of 106.70 points or 0.23% to finish at 45,947.95.

“Pakistan equities commenced the day with some selling pressure as investors opted for profit-taking initially on the news of another mini-budget to be announced by the government in the coming weeks,” said Topline Securities in its post-market statement.

“Better than street expectation result along with handsome payout of Engro Powergen Qadirpur and Engro Polymer lured investor interest towards the Engro Group and other blue chips stocks available at attractive price levels with strong result and payout expectation,” it added.

Morgan Stanley Capital International (MSCI) is also set to announce the results of its consultation with global investors for potentially making Pakistan a part of its Frontier Market (FM) 100 index and FM 15% Country Capped index, developing an outlook for foreign investment flows into the country.

On the corporate front, the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) granted in-principle approval to United Bank Limited (UBL) to commence the due diligence process for its proposed acquisition of 55% sponsor shares in Telenor Microfinance Bank (TMB).

KSE-100 ends lower after range-bound session, low volume

Volume on the all-share index increased to 187.38 million from 150.1 million on Monday. The value of shares traded also improved to Rs7.1 billion, up from Rs6.25 billion recorded in the previous session.

Hum Network was the volume leader with 23.14 million shares, followed by Engro Polymer with 14.70 million shares, and WorldCall Telecom with 14.21 million shares.

Shares of 364 companies were traded on Tuesday, of which 153 registered an increase, 184 recorded a fall, and 27 remained unchanged.