KARACHI: Pakistan Stock Exchange Friday witnessed lackluster activity due to investors’ lack of interest in the absence of any positive trigger.

The investors opted to remain on sidelines due to their concerns over higher inflation and expectation about further increase in interest rate. The benchmark KSE-100 Index closed at 41,630.35 points, up 89 points or 0.22 percent. The index hit 41,744.86 points intraday high and 41,535.50 points intraday low.

Trading activity remained very thin as total daily volumes on ready counter decreased to 154.030 million shares as compared to 192.897 million shares traded Thursday while total daily traded value declined to Rs 4.031 billion against previous day’s Rs 6.786 billion.

BRIndex100 gained 9.2 points or 0.22 percent to close at 4,117.82 points with total daily turnover of 143.402 million shares.

BRIndex30 closed at 15,056.48 points, down 28.98 points or 0.19 percent with total daily trading volumes of 95.848 million shares.

Foreign investors remained net buyers of shares worth $455,062. Total market capitalization increased by Rs 6 billion to Rs 6.962 trillion. Out of total 322 active scrips, 167 closed in positive and 137 in negative while the value of 18 stocks remained unchanged.

Agritech Limited was the volume leader with 19.751 million shares however lost Rs 0.11 to close at Rs 6.54 followed by Azgard Nine that gained Rs 0.52 to close at Rs 10.80 with 9.112 million shares. G3 Technologies closed at Rs 8.66, up Rs 0.20 with 8.716 million shares.

Allawasaya Textile and Sanofi-Aventis were the top gainers increasing by Rs 106.42 and Rs 80.12 respectively to close at Rs 1,525.42 and Rs 1,148.48 while Al-Abbas Sugar and Exide Pak were the top losers declining by Rs 16.30 and Rs 13.29 respectively to close at Rs 272.50 and Rs 265.13.

An analyst at Topline Securities said that lackluster activity was observed at PSX as index traded sideways with low volume throughout the day to close at 41,630 level, up by 0.22 percent.

CPI inflation for the month of June-22 clocked in at 13 year high of 21.3 percent o year-on-year basis taking FY22 average inflation to 12.1 percent. EFERT and FFC increased by 2.15 percent and 1.5 percent, which can be attributed to EFERT increasing Urea prices by Rs 350/bag.

BR Automobile Assembler Index lost 4.69 points or 0.05 percent to close at 9,932.24 points with total turnover of 1.413 million shares.

BR Cement Index declined by 48.94 points or 1.19 percent to close at 4,055.84 points with 4.251 million shares.

BR Commercial Banks Index increased by 85.41 points or 1.0 percent to close at 8,599.95 points with 5.297 million shares.

BR Power Generation and Distribution Index gained 25.59 points or 0.46 percent to close at 5,591.35 points with 8.679 million shares.

BR Oil and Gas Index inched up by 6.81 points or 0.18 percent to close at 3,787.36 points with 11.753 million shares.

BR Tech. & Comm. Index closed at 3,295.00 points, down 18.92 points or 0.57 percent with 16.979 million shares. An analyst at Arif Habib Limited said the market traded in the green zone as the fertilizer sector remained in the limelight due to price increase. Investors hunted for value buying throughout the day.

CPI for the month of Jun’22 clocked in at 21.32 percent on YoY (6.43 percent on MoM). This takes FY22 average inflation to 12.09 percent on YoY compared to 8.90 percent in FY21, highest year-on-year inflation post re-basing of CPI basket. Sectors contributing to the performance include Banks (up 94.5 points), Fertilizer (up 50.0 points), OMC (up 13.0 points), Textile (up 6.1 points) and Real Estate Investment (up 2.7 points).

Copyright Business Recorder, 2022