KARACHI: Pakistan Stock Exchange on Tuesday witnessed a mixed trend and after moving both ways, closed on a negative note as the investors remained on the sidelines and avoided taking fresh positions.

The benchmark KSE-100 Index hit 45,240.21 points intraday high and 44,848.39 points intraday low before closing at 45,009.34 points, down 33.27 points or 0.07 percent.

Trading activity remained low as daily volumes on ready counter decreased to 254.960 million shares as compared to 314.785 million shares traded on Monday. The daily traded value on ready counter increased to Rs 7.322 billion against previous session’s Rs 6.770 billion.

BRIndex100 lost 7.69 points or 0.17 percent to close at 4,513.69 points with total daily turnover of 222.200 million shares.

BRIndex30 decreased by 68.34 points or 0.43 percent to close at 15,736.32 points with total daily trading volumes of 141.422 million shares.

Foreign investors however remained net buyers of shares worth $2.570 million. The market capitalization increased by Rs 4 billion to Rs 6.899 trillion. Out of total 332 active scrips, 193 closed in negative and 117 in positive while the value of 22 stocks remained unchanged.

Bank of Punjab was the volume leader with 29.935 million shares however lost Rs 0.22 to close at Rs 4.05 followed by WorldCall Telecom that closed at previous session’s closing level of Rs 1.32 without any change with 22.845 million shares. Waves Home Appl increased by Rs 1.00 to close at Rs 6.37 with 8.599 million shares.

Colgate Palmolive and Sapphire Textile were the top gainers increasing by Rs 74.59 and Rs 74.48 respectively to close at Rs 1619.92 and Rs 1124.99 while Khairpur Sugar and Pak Services were the top losers declining by Rs 21.90 and Rs 20.01 respectively to close at Rs 270.10 and Rs 749.99.

Ahsan Mehanti at Arif Habib Corporation said stocks closed lower on economic uncertainty amid concerns falling rupee.

He said hike in industrial power tariff and concerns for surging government bond yields played a catalyst role in bearish close.

BR Automobile Assembler Index declined by 104.86 points or 1.23 percent to close at 8,435.18 points with total turnover of 3.950 million shares.

BR Cement Index lost 28.89 points or 0.58 percent to close at 4,933.60 points with 6.502 million shares.

BR Commercial Banks Index gained 42.06 points or 0.44 percent to close at 9,654.49 points with 60.525 million shares.

BR Power Generation and Distribution Index inched up by 4.27 points or 0.05 percent to close at 8,426.23 points with 17.516 million shares.

BR Oil and Gas Index fell by 19.65 points or 0.48 percent to close at 4,063.57 points with 15.324 million shares.

BR Tech. & Comm. Index added 12.78 points or 0.32 percent to close at 3,978.71 points with 52.801 million shares.

Muhammad Shuja Qureshi at JS Global Capital said that the KSE-100 Index touched a low at 44,848, but bounced back to close the day at 45,009, losing 33 points.

MEBL, UBL, and SAZEW continued to post gains, while AVN’s material information brought investors back in the technology sector with AVN, TRG, and NETSOL closing in the green.

Market turnover dropped to 255 million shares, where BOP (down 5.2 percent), WTL (zero percent), WHALE (up 19 percent), BIPL (up 1.3 percent) and AVN (up 4.3 percent) were the volume leaders.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2023