KARACHI: Pakistan Stock Exchange closed on positive note on third consecutive day on the back of healthy buying as investors continued to be optimistic about the potential policy-level agreement between the government and IMF mission. The benchmark KSE-100 index increased by 200.56 points or 0.48 percent and closed at 41,723.32 points on Wednesday. During the session, the index hit 41,848.71 points intra-day high and 41,406.04 points intra-day low level.

Total daily trading volumes on ready counter stood at 297.773 million shares as compared to 296.595 million shares traded on Tuesday while total daily traded value on ready counter declined to Rs 12.072 billion against previous session’s Rs 12.519 billion.

BRIndex100 gained 17.95 points or 0.43 percent to close at 4,173.02 points with total daily turnover of 271.315 million shares.

BRIndex30 inched up by 45.06 points or 0.3 percent to close at 15,215.97 points with total daily trading volumes of 202.077 million shares.

The foreign investors also remained net buyers of shares worth $837,885. Total market capitalization increased by Rs 24 billion to Rs 6.532 trillion. Out of total 346 active scrips, 185 closed in positive and 132 in negative while the value of 29 stocks remained unchanged.

WorldCall Telecom was the volume leader with 64.461 million shares and gained Re 0.08 to close at Rs 1.31 followed by OGDC that inched up by Re 0.48 to close at Rs 99.78 with 22.259 million shares. PPL declined by Rs 1.07 to close at Rs 80.05 with 15.889 million shares.

Bhanero Textile and Lucky Core Industries were the top gainers increasing by Rs 76.51 and Rs 34.74 respectively to close at Rs 1096.61 and Rs 560.74 while Sapphire Fiber and Sapphire Textile were the top losers declining by Rs 41.67 and Rs 38.27 respectively to close at Rs 1100.00 and Rs 986.73.

An analyst at Arif Habib Limited said the PSX recorded a productive session. The market opened in the green and traded within the same range as investors continued to be optimistic about the potential policy-level agreement between the government and IMF mission. Due to the resolution of the Gas Circular debt, the E&P sector remained in the spotlight although volumes remained strong overall.

Sectors contributing to the performance include Technology & Communication (up 77.2 points), OMCs (up 46.5 points), Pharmaceuticals (up 44.1 points), Chemical (up 15.7 points), and Cement (up 13.1 points).

BR Automobile Assembler Index gained 50.34 points or 0.69 percent to close at 7,397.94 points with total turnover of 6.369 million shares.

BR Cement Index inched up by 19.27 points or 0.52 percent to close at 3,730.60 points with 8.508 million shares.

BR Commercial Banks Index added 12.19 points or 0.15 percent to close at 8,127.32 points with 20.097 million shares.

BR Power Generation and Distribution Index lost 45.86 points or 0.67 percent to close at 6,767.44 points with 22.474 million shares.

BR Oil and Gas Index closed at 4,377.77 points, up 24.09 points or 0.55 percent with 56.904 million shares.

BR Tech. & Comm. Index increased by 79.0 points or 1.82 percent to close at 4,422.73 points with 80.822 million shares.

Mubashir Anis Naviwala at JS Global Capital said that the market opened on a positive note but profit taking by investors dragged it down to intraday low of 41,404. The index recovered in the later half to close at 41,723, gaining 200 points. Traded volume stood at 298 million shares major contribution coming in from WTL (up 6.5 percent), OGDC (up 0.5 percent), PPL (down 1.3 percent), LOTCHEM (up 4.9 percent) and KEL (up 0.9 percent).

Copyright Business Recorder, 2023