KARACHI: Pakistan Stock Exchange Thursday witnessed another rangebound session as the rupee continued its depreciation against the US dollar.

The market continued to trade sideways after opening in the positive zone but economic and political unrest kept investors on the sidelines, experts said. The benchmark KSE-100 Index hit 41,939.45 points intraday high and 41,676.90 points intraday low before closing at 41,824.79 points, slightly up by 58.74 points or 0.14 percent.

The daily trading volumes on ready counter slightly improved to 108.704 million shares as compared to 92.938 million shares traded Wednesday while total daily traded value on ready counter increased to Rs 4.391 billion against previous session’s Rs 3.156 billion.

BRIndex100 inched up by 10.73 points or 0.26 percent to close at 4,184.82 points with total daily turnover of 91.402 million shares.

BRIndex30 increased by 111.74 points or 0.74 percent to close at 15,146.59 points with total daily trading volumes of 59.845 million shares.

Foreign investors however remained net sellers of shares worth $235,722. The market capitalization increased by Rs 4 billion to Rs 6.935 trillion. Out of total 320 active scrips, 151 closed in negative and 145 in positive while the value of 24 stocks remained unchanged.

Maple Leaf was the volume leader with 8.407 million shares and gained Rs 0.89 to close at Rs 28.65 followed by Lotte Chemical that increased by Rs 1.32 to close at Rs 30.11 with 6.734 million shares. Hascol Petroleum closed at Rs 6.97, up Rs 0.03 with 5.514 million shares.

Gatron Industries and Thal Ind. Corp were the top gainers increasing by Rs 28.91 and Rs 16.13 respectively to close at Rs 428.90 and Rs 275.00 while Sapphire Textile and Reliance Cotton were the top losers declining by Rs 55.40 and Rs 34.00 respectively to close at Rs 1,055.10 and Rs 426.00.

“Another slow session was witnessed at PSX as the rupee continued its depreciation against the US dollar,” an analyst at Arif Habib Limited said.

The market continued to trade sideways after opening in the positive zone although economic and political unrest kept the investors on the sideline. Volumes remained dry across the main board however value buying was recorded in the last trading hour.

Sectors contributing to the performance include Cement (up 96.5 points), Technology (up 20.8 points), Textile (up 9.7 points), Chemical (up 9.2 points) and Glass & Ceramics (up 6.5 points).

BR Automobile Assembler Index decreased by 64.95 points or 0.72 percent to close at 8,986.46 points with total turnover of 422,693 shares.

BR Cement Index surged by 128.54 points or 2.89 percent to close at 4,579.32 points with 27.406 million shares.

BR Commercial Banks Index lost 46.01 points or 0.52 percent to close at 8,805.09 points with 3.600 million shares.

BR Power Generation and Distribution Index inched up by 0.67 points or 0.01 percent to close at 5,581.67 points with 5.486 million shares.

BR Oil and Gas Index fell by 6.09 points or 0.16 percent to close at 3,856.00 points 11.428 million shares.

BR Tech. & Comm. Index closed at 3,719.05 points, up 25.67 points or 0.7 percent with 12.104 million shares.

Ahsan Mehanti at Arif Habib Corporation said that stocks showed recovery led by cement and energy sector on strong valuations.

He said government rehabilitation outlay on flood losses, bull-run in global equities, and surging global crude oil prices supporting oil stocks played a catalyst role in higher close.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2022