KARACHI: Pakistan Stock Exchange Thursday witnessed a positive trend and closed on positive note as Pakistan received the first tranche of the extended fund facility from the International Monetary Fund.

The benchmark KSE-100 Index hit 42,666.50 points intraday high level and closed at 42,460.08 points with a net gain of 108.93 points or 0.26 percent.

Trading activity also improved as total daily volumes on ready counter increased to 248.196 million shares as compared to 181.267 million shares traded on Wednesday while total daily traded value on ready counter increased to Rs 8.016 billion against previous day’s Rs 7.209 billion.

BRIndex100 inched up by 7.59 points or 0.18 percent to close at 4,256.77 points with total daily turnover of 223.052 million shares.

BRIndex30 closed at 15,494.65 points, down 12.03 points or 0.08 percent with total daily trading volumes of 151.857 million shares.

Foreign investors however remained net sellers of shares worth $1.569 million. Total market capitalization increased by Rs 10 billion to Rs 7.044 trillion. Out of total 345 active scrips, 185 closed in positive and 132 in negative while the value of 28 stocks remained unchanged.

Cnergyico PK was the volume leader with 35.626 million shares however lost Rs 0.04 to close at Rs 5.32 followed by Maple Leaf that gained Rs 0.27 to close at Rs 28.89 with 23.497 million shares. Fauji Cement closed at Rs 15.46, up Rs 0.44 with 13.817 million shares.

Sapphire Textile and Premium Textile were the top gainers increasing by Rs 84.51 and Rs 39.50 respectively to close at Rs 1,244.50 and Rs 699.50 while Bhanero Textile and Sanofi-Aventis were the top losers declining by Rs 102.77 and Rs 100.50 respectively to close at Rs 1,267.85 and Rs 1,239.50.

An analyst at Arif Habib Limited said that the market witnessed a positive session as Pakistan received the first tranche of the extended fund facility from the International Monetary Fund. Investors’ participation remained active throughout the day, healthy volumes were observed while the cement sector remained in the limelight.

Sectors contributing to the performance include Cements (up 89.8 points), Banks (up 19.5 points), Technology (up 18.8 points), Leather (up 10.8 points) and Investment Banks (up 8.0 points).

BR Automobile Assembler Index gained 3.56 points or 0.04 percent to close at 9,224.38 points with total turnover of 639,838 shares.

BR Cement Index increased by 121.97 points or 2.72 percent to close at 4,608.33 points with 70.779 million shares.

BR Commercial Banks Index added 21.7 points or 0.24 percent to close at 8,931.19 points with 13.865 million shares.

BR Power Generation and Distribution Index lost 12.85 points or 0.22 percent to close at 5,699.56 points with 21.118 million shares.

BR Oil and Gas Index inched up by 0.67 points or 0.02 percent to close at 3,911.00 points with 15.308 million shares.

BR Tech. & Comm. Index closed at 3,788.16 points, up 20.89 points or 0.55 percent with 26.583 million shares.

Sara Saeed at JS Global Capital said that the KSE-100 Index witnessed rangebound activity managing to close at the 42,460 level, up 109 points. Total traded volume stood at 248 million shares, up by 37 percent with major contribution from CNERGY (down 0.7 percent), MLCF (up 0.9 percent), FCCL (up 2.9 percent), KAPCO (up 0.1 percent) and PRL (up 1.6 percent).

Copyright Business Recorder, 2022