Pakistan’s stocks witnessed some selling pressure on Tuesday, but the index managed to finish above the 45,000-point level as investors resorted to profit-taking after euphoria over the International Monetary Fund (IMF) deal subsided.

At close, the KSE-100 ended at 45,009.34, a decrease of 33.27 points or 0.07%. This is the fourth successive finish in the red for the benchmark index that rallied nearly 9% after the IMF deal earlier this month.

KSE-100 ends marginally lower after range-bound session

Index-heavy auto, cement, engineering, OMCs, and chemical sectors closed in the red.

The market opened on a positive note, and the index hit an intra-day high of 45,240 before rupee’s intra-day fall acted as a trigger for some profit-taking.

Brokerage house Arif Habib Limited (AHL), which released a bullish report on the market’s prospects in FY24, said that the KSE-100 is now at levels from where a bottom is likely to form.

“Opportunity to buy in a down market is now rapidly diminishing,” it said in a post-close comment.

Volume on the all-share index decreased to 254.96 million from 314.8 million on Monday. The value of shares traded increased to Rs7.32 billion from Rs6.77 billion in the previous session.

Bank of Punjab remained the volume leader with 29.93 million shares followed by WorldCall Telecom with 22.85 million shares and Waves Home Appliance with 8.6 million shares.

Shares of 332 companies were traded on Tuesday, of which 117 registered an increase, 193 recorded a fall and 22 remained unchanged.