KARACHI: Pakistan Stock Exchange on Tuesday witnessed mixed trend and after oscillating between green and red territories finally closed on slight positive note on the back of fresh buying in some stocks on available attractive low levels.

The benchmark KSE-100 index hit 42,887.61 points intra-day high and 42,605.11 points intra-day low level before closing at 42,726.06 points, up 58.74 points or 0.14 percent.

However, trading activities remained thin due to investor lack of interest as total volumes on ready counter decreased to 197.916 million shares as compared to 250.446 million shares traded on Monday, while total daily traded value on ready counter declined to Rs 6.177 billion as compared to previous day’s Rs 8.908 billion.

PSX remains under severe selling pressure

BRIndex100 inched up by 5.53 points or 0.13 percent to close at 4,225.16 points with total daily turnover of 178.944 million shares.

BRIndex30 gained 100.83 points or 0.7 percent to close at 14,480.41 points with total daily trading volumes of 122.007 million shares.

The foreign investors however remained net sellers of shares worth $1.226 million. Total market capitalization increased by Rs 9 billion to Rs 7.085 trillion. Out of total 326 active scrips, 171 closed in positive and 127 in negative while the value of 28 stocks remained unchanged.

WorldCall Telecom was the volume leader with 21.946 million shares and gained Re 0.03 to close at Rs 1.48 followed by Cnergyico PK that inched up by Re 0.10 to close at Rs 5.28 with 15.472 million shares. Lotte Chemical lost Re 0.60 to close at Rs 26.40 with 11.484 million shares.

Sapphire Fiber and Mehmood Textile were the top gainers increasing by Rs 64.11 and Rs 51.80 respectively to close at Rs 1029.00 and Rs 880.00, while Sapphire Textile and Shield Corp were the top losers declining by Rs 81.80 and Rs 20.99 respectively to close at Rs 1010.20 and Rs 267.01.

An analyst at Arif Habib Limited said the market witnessed a lackluster session due to continued economic concerns and political uncertainty. The KSE-100 Index remained range bound as investor participation remained dull over USD taking a flight against Pak rupee making a historic high. Volumes remained dry throughout the board, on the contrary hefty volumes were observed in the 3rd tier stocks.

Sectors contributing to the performance include Banks (up 31.0 points), Technology (up 30.8 points), Fertilizer (up 17.7 points) and Engineering (up 13.1 points).

BR Automobile Assembler Index gained 44.47 points or 0.46 percent to close at 9,610.05 points with total turnover of 347,305 shares.

BR Cement Index declined by 50.02 points or 1.13 percent to close at 4,366.27 points with 13.828 million shares.

BR Commercial Banks Index added 32.49 points or 0.34 percent to close at 9,532.87 points with 8.977 million shares.

BR Power Generation and Distribution Index lost 25.32 points or 0.48 percent to close at 5,240.75 points with 5.669 million shares.

BR Oil and Gas Index inched up by 1.11 points or 0.03 percent to close at 3,640.30 points with 3.750 million shares.

BR Tech & Comm Index closed at 3,207.39 points, up 34.95 points or 1.1 percent with 41.364 million shares.

Mubashir Anis Naviwala at JS Global Capital said that bourse witnessed range-bound activity due to noise in domestic politics and concerns over economic outlook, which kept investors from healthy participation.

The KSE-100 index moved between the range of 277 points, while traded volumes stood at 196 million shares with WTL (up 2.1 percent), CNERGY (up 1.9 percent), LOTCHEM (down 2.2 percent), PRL (up 1.8 percent) and TREET (down 0.8 percent) among the top volume leaders.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2022