KARACHI: Pakistan Stock Exchange Wednesday witnessed a rangebound session with low volumes as investors avoided taking fresh positions due to their concerns over prevailing political and economic situation in the country.

The KSE-100 Index hit 42,517.81 points intraday high and 42,268.84 points intraday low before closing at 42,348.63 points, down 24.96 points or 0.06 percent.

Trading activity remained low as daily volumes on the ready counter decreased to 120.196 million shares as compared to 139.207 million shares traded Tuesday. Daily traded value on the ready counter declined to Rs 4.657 billion against last Rs 5.056 billion.

BRIndex100 lost 15.64 points or 0.37 percent to close at 4,247.33 points with total daily turnover of 83.233 million shares.

BRIndex30 decreased by 96.65 points or 0.61 percent to close at 15,770.24 points with total daily trading volumes of 52.863 million shares.

Foreign investors however remained net buyers of shares worth $3.258 million. The market capitalization however increased by Rs 6 billion to Rs 6.768 trillion. Out of total 334 active scrips, 156 closed in negative and 153 in positive while the value of 25 stocks remained unchanged.

WorldCall Telecom was the volume leader with 8.477 million shares and closed at Rs 1.37, down Rs 0.01 followed by Nishat Chunian that increased by Rs 1.05 to close at Rs 15.15 with 6.671 million shares. Dewan Motors gained Rs 1.00 to close at Rs 12.98 with 5.837 million shares.

Rafhan Maize and Sapphire Textile were the top gainers increasing by Rs 610.00 and Rs 59.24 respectively to close at Rs 10990.00 and Rs 1100.24 while Nestle Pakistan and Premium Textile were the top losers declining by Rs 90.00 and Rs 19.71 respectively to close at Rs 5810.00 and Rs 688.99.

Mubashir Anis Naviwala at JS Global Capital said that the bourse witnessed a rangebound session. The KSE-100 Index moved between a high and low of 42,515 and 42,274 points, respectively. The index eventually closed at 42,349, losing 25 points.

Traded volume stood at 120 million shares where WTL (down 0.7 percent), NCPL (up 7.4 percent), DFML (up 8.3 percent), KEL (down 0.4 percent) and TRG (down 1.3 percent) were the volume leaders.

BR Automobile Assembler Index lost 29.72 points or 0.34 percent to close at 8,675.15 points with total turnover of 6.102 million shares.

BR Cement Index gained 29.07 points or 0.68 percent to close at 4,276.91 points with 7.003 million shares.

BR Commercial Banks Index declined by 82.04 points or 0.97 percent to close at 8,371.06 points with 5.575 million shares.

BR Power Generation and Distribution Index inched up by 8.81 points or 0.13 percent to close at 6,778.18 points with 20.579 million shares.

BR Oil and Gas Index added 22.66 points or 0.59 percent to close at 3,870.07 points with 0.59 percent with 10.237 million shares.

BR Tech. & Comm. Index closed at 4,851.85 points, down 25.5 points or 0.52 percent with 21.487 million shares. An analyst at Arif Habib Limited said that a rangebound session was witnessed at the PSX. The market opened in the green zone but the lack of investors’ participation dive the index down into the red zone and continued to trade in the same zone for most of the trading session. The market participation was approximately lower than the previous session as volumes remained dry in the main board however decent volumes were recorded in the 3rd-tier.

Sectors contributing to the performance include Commercial Banks (down 79.9 points), Technology and Communication (down 17.3 points), Power Generation and Distribution (down 18.2 points), Chemical (down 8.2 points) and Automobile Assembler (down 6.9 points).

Copyright Business Recorder, 2022