Stocks witness uptick

KARACHI: Pakistan Stock Exchange Wednesday witnessed another rangebound session due to concerns regarding political noise and continuous hammering of Pak rupee against the US dollar.

The market witnessed a volatile session and after moving in both directions, closed on slightly positive note.

The benchmark KSE-100 Index hit 42,084.94 points intraday high and 41,913.35 points intraday low before closing at 42,011.82 points, up 10.48 points or 0.02 percent.

Trading activity improved as daily volumes on the ready counter increased to 156.581 million shares as compared to 118.511 million shares traded Tuesday while daily traded value on the ready counter increased to Rs 6.548 billion against Tuesday’s Rs 3.873 billion.

BRIndex100 gained 2.96 points or 0.07 percent to close at 4,203.68 points with total daily turnover of 134.427 million shares.

BRIndex30 increased by 145.14 points or 0.95 percent to close at 15,356.21 points with total daily trading volumes of 92.202 million shares.

Foreign investors remained net buyers of shares worth $1.801 million. Total market capitalization however declined by Rs 10 billion to Rs 6.931 trillion. Out of total 327 active scrips, 180 closed in negative and 128 in positive while the value of 19 stocks remained unchanged.

TRG was the volume leader with 16.741 million shares and surged by Rs 5.41 to close at Rs 102.25 followed by K-Electric that lost Rs 0.05 to close at Rs 3.16 with 14.840 million shares. Hub Power Co increased by Rs 1.94 to close at Rs 66.43 with 11.153 million shares.

Sanofi-Aventis and Premium Textile were the top gainers increasing by Rs 36.62 and Rs 34.39 respectively to close at Rs 1,164.99 and Rs 824.90 while Sapphire Fiber and Nestle Pakistan were the top losers declining by Rs 87.00 and Rs 60.00 respectively to close at Rs 1,079.00 and Rs 5,700.00.

An analyst at Arif Habib Limited said that another rangebound session was witnessed at PSX due to concerns regarding political noise and continuous hammering of Pak rupee against the US dollar. The benchmark KSE-100 Index witnessed a volatile session as investors opted to remain sideways. Main board volumes remained decent although IPPs sector remained in the limelight.

Sectors contributing to the performance include Technology (up 70.5 points), Power (up 54.4 points), E&P (up 23.9 points), Leather and Tanneries (up 9.8 points) and Textile (up 8.2 points).

BR Automobile Assembler Index decreased by 63.67 points or 0.69 percent to close at 9,131.79 points with total turnover of 728,534 shares.

BR Cement Index lost 31.44 points or 0.68 percent to close at 4,559.65 points with 12.450 million shares.

BR Commercial Banks Index declined by 96.2 points or 1.08 percent to close at 8,815.59 points with 8.269 million shares.

BR Power Generation and Distribution Index surged by 115.84 points or 2.05 percent to close at 5,778.50 points with 33.909 million shares.

BR Oil and Gas Index gained 13.02 points or 0.34 percent to close at 3,862.22 points with 12.991 million shares.

BR Tech. & Comm. Index increased by 75.44 points or 2.0 percent to close at 3,853.51 points with 33.641 million shares.

Mohammad Waqar Iqbal at JS Global Capital said that bulls and bears battled throughout the day with the index eventually closing in at 42,012, a 10-point gain.

Total traded volume was 157 million shares where TRG (up 5.6 percent), KEL (down 1.6 percent), HUBC (up 3.0 percent), CNERGY (down 0.4 percent) and HASCOL (down 3.5 percent) were the volume leaders.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2022