KARACHI: Pakistan Stock Exchange Thursday remained depressed during the first half of the trading session due to foreign selling, however healthy buying mainly by local investors at the fag end supported the market to close on a positive note with healthy gains.
The benchmark KSE-100 Index hit 43,569.16 points intraday high and 42,936.06 points intraday low level before closing at 43,522.55 points with a net gain of 318.76 points or 0.74 percent.
Trading activity also improved as total daily volumes increased to 149.788 million shares as compared to 138.281 million shares traded on Wednesday while total daily traded value increased to Rs 5.640 billion against previous day’s Rs 5.005 billion.
BRIndex100 increased by 50.93 points or 1.19 percent to close at 4,342.96 points with total daily turnover of 129.656 million shares.
BRIndex30 surged by 327.13 points or 2.17 percent to close at 15,377.11 points with total daily trading volumes of 87.170 million shares.
Foreign investors however remained on selling side and withdrew $3.566 million from local equity market. The market capitalization increased by Rs 45 billion to Rs 7.346 trillion. Out of total 334 active scrips, 178 closed in positive and 132 in negative while the value of 24 stocks remained unchanged.
Treet Corp was the volume leader with 20.763 million shares and gained Rs 0.83 to close at Rs 30.90 followed by TRG Pak that increased by Rs 3.98 to close at Rs 76.38 with 10.204 million shares. Telecard Limited closed at Rs 10.39, up Rs 0.29 with 9.403 million shares.
Unilever Foods and Rafhan Maize were the top gainers increasing by Rs 550.50 and Rs 286.67 respectively to close at Rs 24,000 and Rs 11,690.00 while Wyeth Pak and Shield Corp were the top losers declining by Rs 35.38 and Rs 25.91, respectively to close at Rs 2060.57 and Rs 319.74.
An analyst at Arif Habib Limited said that volatile session was observed due to uptick in the auction result of Market Treasury Bills. The cut-off yields on 3-12 months T-bills stood higher compared to the longer-tenure papers like 3-10 years Pakistan Investment Bonds (PIBs).
The market opened in the green zone but battled between the bulls and bears throughout the day. Main board activity remained dull. On the flip-side, activity continued to remain side-ways as market witnessed hefty volumes in the 3rd tier stocks. In the last trading hour, value buying was witnessed which led the index to close in the green zone.
Sectors contributing to the performance include Cement (up 73.7 points), Technology (up 53.1 points), Commercial Banks (up 36.2 points) and Fertilizer (up 33.5 points).
BR Automobile Assembler Index gained 16.74 points or 0.19 percent to close at 8,837.42 points with total turnover of 582,007 shares.
BR Cement Index increased by 92.95 points or 1.83 percent to close at 5,161.27 points with 10.577 million shares.
BR Commercial Banks Index inched up by 27.76 points or 0.29 percent to close at 9,754.14 points with 16.616 million shares.
BR Power Generation and Distribution Index added 50.26 points or 0.9 percent to close at 5,618.03 points with 5.176 million shares.
BR Oil and Gas Index closed at 3,735.11 points, up 23.85 points or 0.64 points with 5.200 million shares.
BR Tech. & Comm. Index surged by 56.4 points or 1.68 percent to close at 3,407.76 points with 33.467 million shares.
“Another dull session was witnessed at the bourse as uncertainty over domestic politics and economic outlook kept investors away from healthy participation,” Mubashir Anis Naviwala at JS Global Capital said.
Selling pressure was observed across the board but market recovered during the last hours on expectation of resolution of political issues.
Major contribution to the traded volume of 150 million shares came from TREET (up 2.8 percent), TRG (up 5.5 percent), TELE (up 2.9 percent), TPLP (up 1.8 percent) and UBL (down 0.8 percent).
Copyright Business Recorder, 2022