The local bourse remained in the grip of panic selling Friday and the Exchange had to trigger another market halt just after opening of the trading session this week. However, fresh buying at the fag end supported the market to close on a positive note. The market halt was triggered to suspend the trading activities for 45 minutes.

BRIndex100 gained 9.73 points or 0.26 percent to close at 3,715.13 points. BRIndex100 touched intraday high of 3,724.31 and intraday low of 3,552.58 points. Volumes stood at 277.273 million shares. BRIndex30 increased by 253.84 points or 1.4 percent to close at 18,381.47 points with a turnover of 211.949 million shares.

The KSE-100 Index after touching 34,269.37 points intra-day low and 36,230.24 points intra-day high, closed at 36,060.88 points, up 104.19 points or 0.29 percent. Daily trading volumes on the ready counter increased to 290.470 million shares as compared to 230.698 million shares traded Thursday.

Foreign investors remained net sellers of shares. They withdrew $12.2 million from the capital market. The market capitalization declined by Rs 10 billion to Rs 6.795 trillion. Out of total 354 active scrips, 182 closed in negative, 158 in positive while the value of 14 stocks remained unchanged.

Bank of Punjab was the volume leader with 31.115 million shares. However, it lost Re 0.10 to close at Rs 10.10 followed by Maple Leaf that gained Re 0.16 to close at Rs 27.58 with 25.705 million shares. Unilever Foods and Sapphire Textile were the top gainers with Rs 90.00 and Rs 49.99, respectively to close at Rs 7,300.00 and Rs 874.99. Pak Tobacco and Bata Pak were the top losers with Rs 134.68 and Rs 57.38, respectively to close at Rs 1,789.32 and Rs 1,630.01.

BR Automobile Assembler Index lost 29.7 points or 0.52 percent to close at 5,693.74 points with total turnover of 1.597 million shares.

BR Cement Index declined by 49.06 points or 1.14 percent to close at 4,236.03 points with 90.128 million shares. BR Commercial Banks Index fell by 57.79 points or 0.68 percent to close at 8,395.30 points with 47.272 million shares.

BR Power Generation and Distribution Index closed at 4,685.89 points, down 0.15 points with 14.587 million shares. BR Oil and Gas Index plunged by 84.9 points or 2.46 percent to close at 3,533.12 points with 39.752 million shares.

BR Tech. & Comm. Index shed 1.64 points or 0.18 percent to close at 890.65 points with 21.962 million shares. Maaz Mulla at JS Global Capital said that the stock market opened in a freefall as the index plummeted over 1,690 points in intra-day trading, following a crash in financial markets across the world amid deepening corona fears.

The drastic fall pushed the KSE-100 Index far below the 34,267 level, triggering a halt in trading for the third time this week. However, the index managed to make a decent recovery after trading resumed to make an intraday high of positive 255 points to close at 36,061 level, up 104 points.

Major recovery was witnessed in the E&Ps and Cement sectors, where POL (up 3.2 percent), OGDC (up 4.0 percent), PPL (up 1.4 percent), PIOC (up 2.9 percent), KOHC (up 4.3 percent), DGKC (up 0.9 percent) and MLCF (up 0.6 percent) were the major movers of the mentioned sectors. In the banking sector UBL (down 3.0 percent) and MCB (down 2.5) closed in the red zone, while HBL (up 1.1 percent) closed in green.