KARACHI
Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) saw a cautious session on Wednesday and the KSE-100 Index ended flat after trading on both sides of the spectrum, inching up by 0.73 points to settle at 47,418.63 points.
The market opened on a positive note and remained in the green territory during the first half an hour trading. Later, political instability coupled with economic uncertainty encouraged investors to book profits on their holdings. The sentiment remained bearish during the next four hours’ trading and the benchmark index touched the day’s low amid unabated rupee’s depreciation against the US dollar.
However, impressive financial results of Bank Al Habib Limited (BAHL) and strong support close to 47,000 points helped the index gain over 400 points during the last 90 minutes’ trading, which eroded all the intra-day loss and the index closed on a positive note.
The benchmark index traded in a range of 580.58 points showing an intraday high of 47,588.23 points and an intraday low of 47,007.65 points. Among other indices, the KSE All Share Index shed 36.93 points (-0.12 percent) to close at 31,494.11 points, while KMI All Share Islamic Index shed 39.72 points (-0.17 percent) to close at 22,979.26 points.
Total volumes traded for the KSE-100 Index increased by 23.05 million shares to 96.28 million shares against 73.23 million shares traded a session earlier. Similarly, the overall market volumes increased by 2.93 million shares to 188.68 million shares against 185.75 million shares traded a session earlier.
Among scrips, WTL topped the volumes with 20.99 million shares, followed by OGDC (16.05 million) and JSBL (12.26 million). Stocks that contributed significantly to the volumes included WTL, OGDC, JSBL, DFML, and PPL, which formed over 36 percent of total volumes.
A total of 321 companies traded shares in the stock exchange against 313 a session earlier, out of which shares of 106 closed up, shares of 186 closed down while shares of 29 companies remained unchanged. A total of 93 companies traded shares in the KSE-100 Index against 94 a session earlier, out of which share price of 34 companies closed up, 55 closed down and four remained unchanged.
The number of total trades increased by 8,462 to 102,141 as compared to 93,679 trades recorded in the previous session, while the value traded increased by Rs2.57 billion to Rs8.79 billion as compared to the previous session.
In terms of rupee, GADT remained the top gainer and witnessed an increase of Rs14.99 (+7.5 percent) per share, closing at Rs214.99. The runner-up remained MARI, the share price of which climbed up by Rs9.8 (+0.6 percent) to Rs1,636.96. AWTX remained the top loser in terms of rupee and witnessed a decrease of Rs130 (-7.22 percent) per share, closing at Rs1,670, followed by PSEL, the share price of which fell by Rs40.28 (-5.56 percent) to close at Rs684.72 per share.
The sectors taking the index towards north were commercial banks (84 points), power generation & distribution (21 points), oil & gas exploration companies (20 points), oil & gas marketing companies (6 points), and textile spinning (4 points).
The major companies adding points to the index remained BAHL (78 points), HUBC and HBL (23 points each), HMB (12 points), and PSO (11 points).
The sectors taking the index towards south were cement and technology & communication (26 points each), miscellaneous (24 points), investment banks/ investment companies/ securities companies (15 points) and pharmaceuticals (13 points). The major companies depriving the index of points remained MCB (27 points), PSEL (22 points), SYS (19 points), DAWH (14 points) and MLCF (8 points). TLTP
